


feet first; don't fall

by idrilka



Series: for all of the perfect things that i doubt [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, Closeted Character, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mentions of Anxiety Disorder, Pre-Canon, mentions of overdose
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-20
Updated: 2015-12-20
Packaged: 2018-05-08 01:22:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5478017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilka/pseuds/idrilka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts like this: Jack Zimmermann goes to rehab. Kent Parson goes first in the draft. This is the story of what happens after.</p>
            </blockquote>





	feet first; don't fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [schwule](https://archiveofourown.org/users/schwule/gifts).



> Happy Holidays, darling, and may your winter break be the swawesomest! ♥  
> To tell you the truth, I loved _both_ your requests, so in the end, this story is a bit of both. It is primarily about Kent's rookie year with the Aces, but this story is also full of Jack, because I can't really see it happening differently. So there are multiple references to their time in the Juniors, even though they're not really the focus of this story.  
>  As usual, a couple of thank yous: first of all, huge thanks to beardsley and lanyon, who were the best cheerleaders I could hope for; and secondly, huge, _huge_ thanks to Codie, for beta-reading and her amazing words of encouragement.  
>  And, last but not least: I absolutely _loved_ writing this story for you, and I really, really hope that you enjoy it as well. And maybe it's not a very happy story, overall, but then again, Kent Parson is not a very happy boy.  
>  Title from _Roman Holiday_ by Halsey.

He throws up twice before they call everyone out. 

They’re backstage, the whole lot of them, excited and scared shitless at the same time, waiting to come out in front of the cameras, and Kent slips out for a moment, scrolling through his contacts with shaking hands. His palms are clammy, and Kent feels like he’s running a fever, the taste of bile bitter at the back of his throat, and, fuck, right now, he feels like a _kid_. He’s about to go first in the NHL draft, and he feels like a scared little kid, shaking all over and desperately trying not to be sick. 

He calls Bob, and the phone rings, and rings, and rings before it goes to voicemail, and Kent feels another wave of nausea come over him. 

Then he calls Jack, and that goes straight to voicemail, his phone completely turned off. Kent manages to listen to Jack’s voicemail message once before he needs to hang up before he starts to cry. 

When he left Quebec, Jack was still unconscious, and they didn’t want to let Kent in to see him, and there had been a few terrible hours before the Zimmermanns arrived at the hospital where Kent felt like he was slowly going out of his mind, waiting in the monochromatic hospital lobby, gripping his phone so tightly he could feel his fingers start to bruise, his knuckles white.

They were supposed to fly out to Montreal at eight in the morning. He found Jack around midnight; almost got sick all over his shoes in the ambulance, looking at Jack’s pale face and blue lips. 

He figures he’d know, if Jack—if he didn’t make it. They’d all know by now. But no one is telling them anything, and Kent figures they’d tell them if that happened. It would be too important not to. 

He calls Bob again, then tries Alicia, but neither of them picks up. He doesn’t blame them. They probably have their phones turned on silent, and they must be still at the hospital, waiting for the news. They would’ve called, he thinks, if anything had changed. 

He tried to tell them that he didn’t _know_ —he knew Jack got the jitters a lot, and that he was taking pills for that, going to see a shrink on the regular and all that, but he had _no idea_ it’d been this bad—but Alicia just hugged him, and she was crying, and then Kent was crying, too, and Bob just squeezed Kent’s shoulder, hard, and said, “Thanks for being there for him, son.”

They were just supposed to go away together for a couple of days before the draft. Kent wasn’t supposed to find Jack unconscious in a fucking _hotel room_ in fucking _Quebec_. They were supposed to go first and second in the draft, and then they were supposed to change the face of the game forever. 

And Kent loves hockey more than most things in his life, but right now, he doesn’t want to be here at all.

“Parson?” One of the USHL guys peers around the corner, apparently looking for him. Kent schools his expression into one of casual indifference. “They’re waiting for you. We’re up.”

.

Kent is drafted first overall by the Las Vegas Aces. 

Afterwards, they shove cameras in his face, and he’s sweating in the Aces jersey and baseball cap under the hot lights, and still feels like he wants to throw up, because of this and because of Jack, but he still smiles for the cameras and spouts the usual bullshit about how happy he is to be going to some subpar franchise located in a state where people don’t give half a fuck about hockey, how grateful he is for this opportunity to be a part of such a young team, how excited he is to be playing in the NHL (that last one at least is true).

Once he’s done with the dog and pony show, he finds an empty hallway and dials Bob’s number again. This time, Bob picks up after the fourth ring. 

“Congratulations, Kent,” he says, and, _fuck_ , it’s not about that. It’s never been about that, but, Kent thinks, maybe it’s a distraction. Maybe it’s easier to congratulate him on being the first overall draft pick than to think about your son who almost killed himself not even twenty four hours earlier. “We’re very happy for you, Alicia and I.”

Kent’s free hand slowly curls into a fist at his side. 

“Thank you,” he says, because that’s the polite thing to do. “It’s— How is he? Is he okay?”

Bob is silent on the other end of the line for a moment, and Kent starts to panic, his breathing rapid and the sound of his hammering heart almost deafening in his ears. 

“He woke up an hour ago,” Bob says then, and Kent sags against the wall, slowly sliding down the brick until he hits the ground. The relief is like another punch to the gut, and he finds himself trying to catch a breath, like the air has been knocked out of his lungs. 

“Did he— Is he okay?” It’s a meaningless question, because it’s been made pretty clear to everyone that Jack is not even remotely fucking okay, but Kent still needs to hear that it’s going to be _fine_. He can only hope Bob understands that. 

“No permanent damage,” Bob says, and Kent breathes another sigh of relief. “They were worried, with how long he wasn’t breathing, that there might be some brain damage, but he’s fine. Physically, I mean.”

Kent takes a deep breath, then another. 

“Good,” he says. “That’s…good. I— Thank you for telling me, and I’m sorry I couldn’t—”

Bob interrupts him before he can get the words out. “It’s not your fault, Kent.”

The words ring in his ears all the way back to the hotel. He wants to believe what Bob said is true, he really does.

.

They fly him out to Vegas to sign the contract, all expenses paid, thank fucking god, because Kent has about ten bucks in his bank account, and he’d never ask his mom to cover him, not when she’s already sacrificed so much to get him there, and he sits in first class, feeling completely out of place, his snapback pulled down to hide his face, because he might be a dumb kid from Albany, but his name and his face have been plastered all over sports news for the past few days, and he’s just _not_ in the mood.

He still hasn’t heard from Jack—Kent knows he got discharged two days after the draft, and Kent tried calling, but all he got was Jack’s voicemail, and he fucking hates himself for it just a little bit, but he listened to Jack’s voicemail message every time like some lovesick puppy, and it fucking _hurt_ to hear Jack’s voice that way. 

Bob was the one who called, the day Jack was discharged from the hospital, to tell Kent they’d be taking him to a rehab facility somewhere north of Montreal, and Kent got the message loud and clear—talk to him now, if you want to say goodbye before he goes away for a while. Jack, apparently, didn’t get the memo, though, and it keeps eating away at Kent, the way he can’t figure out what he did wrong. _If_ he did something wrong. 

The uncertainty is fucking killing him, and he’s angry—angry at himself, angry at Jack, angry at the whole fucking world, for pulling the rug from under Kent’s feet at this particular moment in time. He’s about to sign a contract with more zeros than he’s seen in his entire life, let alone ever had to his name, and he can’t even be fucking happy about it.

But he signs it, he signs the contract, and he smiles for the fucking cameras, wondering all the time if the Aces even wanted him in the first place. Maybe they designed their new plays for the next season around _Jack_ , and got Kent instead. 

He doesn’t cry in his car afterwards, but it’s a close thing, and then he leaves for the airport to catch his flight back home. 

His mother is there to pick him up when he touches down at Albany International, and she hugs him tight, then takes him back to their small two-bedroom apartment in Groesbeckville; Sam opens the door for them, and then she’s hugging Kent, too. She’s almost as tall as him now, and she’s still not done growing.

“Hey, brat,” Kent says.

“Ugh,” Sam says, scrunching up her nose, like Kent lives only to annoy the living shit out of her. “You’re the worst, but I still love you. I guess.”

He’s dead on his feet, and when he checks his phone on his way to bed, there are still no missed calls from Jack. He doesn’t try again.

.

He arrives in Vegas on the third of August, and isn’t _that_ a fucking joke, just another one his life has pulled on him recently, except Kent is not laughing. 

He has a new lease on a small one-bedroom condo and a new car, because it’s impossible to survive living in the Southwest without one, and all of his belongings fit inside three suitcases. It’s sort of pathetic. 

Cal Whiteman, one of the other guys on the team, lives in the same apartment building Kent does, two floors up, and he’s there when Kent parks at the curb in front of the building. He still doesn’t have his main gate remote, and he can’t pull up into the underground garage without it, so Cal opens the gate for him to let him pass. 

“Thanks,” Kent says when he comes up to the ground floor lobby. “I’m Kent. Nice to finally meet you.”

“Hell yeah,” Cal says, grinning, and he pulls Kent into a hug. “We’re practically roomies, Parser. It’s good to have you here, man. The boys are excited.”

“I’m glad to be here,” Kent says. The PR people would be proud of him. 

They take the elevator up to Kent’s floor, and just as the door slides open to reveal a wide hallway painted white and grey, Cal asks, “Need a hand unpacking your shit? I’m pretty good at this, according to my sister.”

Kent laughs. “Well, if your sister says so,” he says. “Pizza is on me.”

.

It’s almost ten when Cal leaves. 

Kent has been fighting a mild jetlag for the past hour or so, so he decides to turn in early for the night; he takes a quick shower, and he can’t quite get the water temperature right at first, and when he brushes his teeth in front of the bathroom mirror, he looks at himself, his mouth full of toothpaste foam, and he feels like he wants to cry.

He’s no stranger to living away from home, to living out of his suitcase while they’re away on roadies, bunking up with snoring roommates in nondescript hotel rooms that start to blur together after a while, but Kent has never, in his entire life, lived completely alone. 

But here he is now, thousands of miles away from his family, and it’s his best friend’s birthday, and Kent knows Jack wouldn’t pick up the phone even if he could.

Maybe he should get a cat.

He’s in bed by ten-thirty, and he knows—he knows he shouldn’t, but he still reaches for his phone, lying on the nightstand next to the unfamiliar bed with a too-soft mattress, and types out a quick _happy birthday_ , then presses send before he can think better of it.

.

The Aces don’t have a named captain—they never have, since the franchise was first established—but Dubois, Thacker and Lagunov have all worn the A before, and Dubois meets with Kent for lunch three days after Kent arrives in Vegas.

He’s tall, built, and speaks with a slight Quebecois accent that makes Kent sick to his stomach.

They eat at some cozy hole-in-the-wall taco joint that doesn’t make Kent feel like he’s paying more for the lunch than his mom makes in a week, and Dubois gets Kent a beer, which is unexpected but also pretty fucking great. Kent could definitely use a drink or two, or ten. 

It’s been a rough few weeks.

“Drink up, Parser,” Dubois says, raising his bottle like he’s about to make a toast, and inclines it a bit in Kent’s direction. “Your American drinking age limits are ridiculous anyway. And welcome to the team.”

They’re talking like there isn’t still the camp to get through, like there’s no possibility that Kent could be cut before the start of the preseason, bumped down to the AHL to stew slowly in his resentment and disappointment somewhere in Henderson, playing for the Nevada Spades or whatever the fuck they’re called—and maybe he’s just jinxed it in some way, but if there’s one thing Kent is one hundred percent positive about, it’s the fact that he can play some damn good hockey.

He went first in the fucking draft, there’s no way he’s getting cut, and they both know it. Hell, the entire hockey world knows this. 

“So how are you liking Vegas so far?” Dubois asks after they destroy their fish tacos and lean back in their chairs. 

Kent runs his thumb up and down the bottle, collecting the perspiration on the tip of his finger, then takes a long drink of his beer, shrugs. 

“Not bad,” he admits, and he’s not _entirely_ lying. “Hot as fuck.”

Dubois laughs, loud and amused, then starts to methodically peel the label off his beer bottle. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Took me a while to get used to it, too. Pittsburgh was _very_ different, I mean, you know how it is. And it’s…the people here, they don’t really care much about hockey. We get a lot of tourists in the crowd.”

Better than nothing, Kent thinks, and who the fuck thought that a _hockey franchise_ in a state that is mostly _desert_ would be a good idea in the first place. 

“Look,” Dubois says after a moment of silence, leaning forward in his chair, “I know you probably never really wanted this, to be drafted by some expansion team on the other side of the fucking country, but it’s…honestly, it’s not that bad. The guys are great, and we all have the same goal here, to get better, and we’re willing to fucking work our asses off for it, so you never know, you might like it here.”

Jack used to have a poster in his room that Kent _hated_ , full of some moto bullshit about being better, even though Kent knew that for Jack, _being better_ apparently amounted to working himself almost to the breaking point, until he couldn’t take it anymore.

It’s not about work ethic—it has never been about work ethic, because fuck that, Kent has that, too, otherwise he would never have made it to the big leagues, and he’s been pushing himself more and more each day since he first put on skates, but there’s a difference between wanting something and wanting something so bad it almost kills you. 

“I know,” he says, “I’m not worried about that. And it’s not like I regret being here or anything. Just…you know. Big changes, and all that.”

Dubois looks at him over the rim of his bottle. “Don’t worry, it’s gonna get easier soon.”

Well, shit. It fucking _better_ , Kent thinks.

.

All that waiting is sort of slowly killing him.

The camp is still a few weeks away, and it’s not like Kent knows anyone here, apart from Cal and Dubois, who have better things to do than coddle some rookie who hasn’t even officially made the team yet, so he throws himself into his off-ice conditioning, even though he has no official training regimen, and spends the rest of the time actively avoiding thinking about Jack. 

It works, most days. 

Nights, though—nights are a different matter altogether.

He buys a few things for the apartment, because he refuses to let it stay in this sad as fuck state in which the entire space doesn’t look lived-in at all. Two trips to Ikea later, he has a new armchair, a small coffee table, an assortment of fancy-looking boxes to keep his random shit in, and a tall lamp.

He also has next to no money in his account, so this will have to do for now. 

So he works out, and binge-watches all the tv shows he never had the time to catch up on during the season, and reads some books he started and never finished but always meant to get back to at some point. Kent’s mom calls every few days, whenever she has time, and Sam skypes him in the evenings, and Kent _doesn’t_ read all that speculation about Jack’s whereabouts or condition people post on the Internet in the meantime. He _doesn’t_.

.

When he goes to check out the arena two days before camp, he runs into Laakkonen in front of the locker room entrances. 

“Parson!” He waves at Kent as soon as he spots him in the hallway. He’s on the smaller side for a goalie, but Kent knows he’s also incredibly fast and pretty much the best player the Aces have right now on the active roster. He’s also very, _very_ blond and, apparently, cheerful as fuck. “Dude, I did _not_ know I’d be running into you today! I’m really stoked to be finally meeting you in person, man.”

“Just checking out the homestead, y’know?” Kent says as they shake hands, and Laakkonen claps him on the back. Kent leans against the wall then, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans, the perfect picture of nonchalance he’s spent so much time cultivating. He can almost fool himself now. “Getting the feel of the place.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Laakkonen nods enthusiastically. He speaks without an accent, and if Kent didn’t know any better, he would’ve pegged him for a Brit. “I remember when I first came here, first season after the lockout, and man, talk about a change of climate. It’s been good, though. Good place, good guys, y’know?”

Kent nods mechanically; he knows Laakkonen is still pretty young—got drafted by the Aces at twenty, straight from Finland, and he’s been with them ever since. 

In the end, Laakkonen gives Kent the tour, tells him a few things about the daily grind at their home arena, tells him what to avoid in the cafeteria, and he’s so fucking _nice_ to Kent that at this point he’s just _waiting_ for the rude awakening, since everything has been going far too smoothly up until this point. But then again, maybe the fact that he found his best friend half-dead in a fucking hotel bathroom already took care of that. Maybe after living through _that_ , everything else in Kent’s life is gonna be smooth fucking sailing. 

They say goodbye around lunchtime—Kent invites Laakkonen to eat with him, but he’s apparently already made other plans, so they get into their cars and go their separate ways after swapping their phone numbers. 

On the way back, Kent stops at an Albertsons to pick up some bread, milk and a six-pack of Gatorade, then goes back to his empty apartment, makes himself lunch and looks up the local animal shelters. The thing is, he knows it’s a stupid idea, because it’s not like he has anyone here who’d take care of his cat while Kent goes away, so he just closes the tab and shakes his head at himself. 

Don’t be a fucking idiot, Parson, he thinks.

.

The camp comes and goes, and Kent is still there. 

When he steps onto the ice for the first time with the other rookies, he’s the only one who doesn’t look like he wants to pass out or puke on his skates. 

He’s not even shaking on the inside like he thought he would, but maybe it’s just that this doesn’t even compare to that time he forced himself to smile in front of the cameras on draft night while his insides felt like they were about to fall out at any moment through his mouth. 

He skates well and most of his passes connect, even though he instinctively keeps looking for Jack to his left, and the Aces’ playing style is different from what he’d been used to in Rimouski, but not different enough that he can’t catch up pretty quickly. After all, he’s always been quick on his feet, in more ways than one. 

On day three, they cut one of the rookies, a guy from Ontario who was a sixth-round pick and who cries when he hears the news, and yet Kent is still there, scoring more often that some of the veterans on the team, his passes smooth and well-timed, and none of the guys on the active roster can keep up with him, speed-wise.

It’s a damn good feeling, to know that he is good enough for the NHL, after all.

Still, it nags at him sometimes, if maybe they expected Jack to be here, and got Kent instead. If maybe _they_ needed to play catch-up, too.

By day five, Kent is the only rookie left, along with Griffin, a second-round pick Kent knows (soft of) back from his days in the Q. Funny, how these things turn out. Kent usually isn’t one to drop his gloves, but he did once, for _Griffin_ , of all people, after a dirty hit sent Jack into the boards and took him out of the game completely.

“Dude, no hard feelings, yeah?” Griffin asks as they clear the ice at the end of practice. “I was a dick to Zimmermann, you fucked me up, we’re even, right?”

Kent shakes Griffin’s hand and nods. “Yeah,” he says, and he even means it. What a surprise. “No hard feelings.”

“It’s fucked up, man, what happened to him,” Griffin says next. “Who knew Zimmermann was a cokehead.”

Kent’s face goes stony. 

“The fuck did you just say?” he snarls and pins Griffin to the wall by the locker room door. Griffin has a good few inches on Kent, and he’s much more buff, but Kent is seeing red, and it’s like one of those things he sees on tv sometimes, when someone lifts a car to save someone else, the adrenaline rushing through his veins. “Never, _ever_ , say that shit again, you hear me? You don’t know _shit_ , so shut your fucking mouth and _don’t even talk about him_ , you get this? I dropped my gloves once, I can do it again, so shut _the fuck_ up.”

He’s out of breath by the time he’s done, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggles for air, and there must be something in his face that spells out how deadly fucking serious he is about this, because Griffin looks like he has no fight left in him. 

“Yeah,” he says, and Kent can see him swallow. “Yeah, sorry, I just— That’s what everyone says, so I thought—”

Kent feels his jaw lock, and he tries to stop gritting his teeth. “You thought wrong.”

He lets Griffin go, takes a step back, then another, curls his hands into fists at his sides. 

“Sorry,” Griffin says. 

“Just,” Kent says, trying to calm himself down, “just don’t do that again. You don’t know anything about Jack. _No one_ knows what the hell they’re talking about. Except for me, because I fucking found him.”

He turns on his heel after that, leaving Griffin with that revelation. What he does with that knowledge is entirely up to him.

.

Thacker throws a party at his place after the camp winds down to a close the day after that. 

“Hey, Parson, you should drop by, since you’re stuck with us now,” he says as Kent changes into his street clothes after the open skate. 

“Yeah, sure,” Kent says. “Just text me the address.”

Thacker lives on the other side of the city, and Kent takes a cab, since he knows he’ll be drinking, and what he definitely _doesn’t_ need right now is a DUI, because he’s: one—not a fucking idiot, and two—underage.

When he arrives, the party is already in full swing, and maybe Vegas doesn’t give a shit about hockey, but the pretty girls lounging around the living room and out on the patio certainly don’t give a shit that Vegas doesn’t give a shit.

Kent has no idea who most of these people are, but then again, he’s never been bad in social situations—he’s never been like _Jack_ , who hated parties until he didn’t, numb and loose around the shoulders from too much alcohol, and maybe that should’ve clued Kent in as to how _bad_ it really was, but they were just teenagers, they were _supposed to_ do stupid shit and get drunk at parties. They didn’t get to have a normal high school experience, so that was—nice, in a way. Normal. Just something teenagers did. 

Until it wasn’t.

Thacker gives Kent a slap on the back and hands him a beer as soon as he spots him, standing by the terrace door. 

“Parser!” Shanksy shouts from across the room. “We thought you bailed on us!”

“As if,” Kent says, and salutes him with his beer. “You’re not getting rid of me now.”

“Thank fucking god,” Cal says to Kent’s left, and he clicks his bottle against Kent’s, “now maybe we’ll actually make the playoffs.”

Shanksy laughs. “Dude, shut the fuck up,” he says. “Parser’s ego is already too big for this room, there’s no need to make it _worse_.”

Kent gives him the finger, then goes off to find himself something to eat. There’s pizza and empanadas, and tacos, and tamales so good it almost blows Kent’s mind; apparently Gina, Thacker’s fiancée, is _really_ into cooking and inherited a book of family recipes from her grandma or something, but whatever happened, Kent is really, _really_ fucking grateful that it did.

“So how’s Vegas been treating you, Parser?” Keller asks as Kent sprawls next to him on the couch with his beer and two empanadas on a paper plate. 

“Haven’t melted yet, that has to count for something, right?” Kent says with a smile, and it makes Lagunov laugh. 

“I grew up in Yakutsk, okay?” he says. “It’s winter there most of the time. It was a big change when I came here. Had to adjust for a long time.”

Now it’s Kent’s turn to laugh. “Okay, buddy, you got me,” he says. “That must’ve _majorly_ sucked.”

Lagunov nods. “Sure did. But it’s all better now. Just takes time, you know?”

Kent sure fucking does. It doesn’t mean he has to like it, though.

They talk about stupid, insignificant shit while Kent methodically devours the empanadas, and then he goes off to find himself another drink and a quiet corner to think for a moment. 

The last time he’d gone to a party, he found Jack unconscious with a bottle of pills in a shitty hotel bathroom just a few hours after, and he feels a little overwhelmed right now. His first instinct is, as always, to call Jack. But Jack is in rehab, for one thing, and for another, he’s made it perfectly clear that he doesn’t want to talk to Kent. 

The thing is, though, that Kent still has no idea _why_. They were good—or at least Kent thought they were—and Jack never _said_ anything. They were _happy_ , in those thirty-four days between when they won the Memorial Cup and Jack hoisted it above his head and Kent wanted to kiss him right there on the ice, and that night at their hotel in Quebec, after the party they’d gone to just a few hours earlier, where Kent had _blown_ Jack in a locked bathroom, and they kissed after, and Jack fucking _smiled_.

“Dude, you okay?”

Kent looks up from where he’s sitting on the third step of the staircase that leads up to the first floor, and he sees Griffin, of all people, leaning against the wall just to Kent’s left. 

“Sure,” Kent smiles, “why wouldn’t I be?”

Griffin shrugs. “Dunno, man. You don’t look particularly okay.”

Kent licks his lips. “I’m fucking wiped,” he says, leaning back to rest his elbows on the one of the steps behind him, and he knows he looks casual and relaxed, his face open and showing nothing at the same time.

Griffin nods, looking like he’s about to finally piss off, but then he takes a deep breath and says, “Look, sorry I was a dick yesterday, about Zimmermann. Whatever happened, it sucks, like, I fucking get this, so, you know. Sorry, is all I’m saying, yeah?”

“Yeah, I know,” Kent says, trying not to roll his eyes, because what he _wants_ to say is that maybe Griffin shouldn’t just repeat everything he hears, since that’s a dumb fucking thing to do, but he keeps that to himself. “It’s fine.”

Griffin goes away after that, thank fucking god, and Kent finishes his beer, then gets off the stairs and drops by the rec room, where Orlovsky, Weaver, Bagley, and Smalls are playing pool. It’s pretty pathetic, though, and Kent could easily whoop their asses. He grabs a cue from the stand and reaches for a piece of chalk.

“Gentlemen,” he says, opening his arms wide like he’s about to take a bow, and he smirks. “Ready to get your asses handed to you?”

.

He makes the first line in his preseason NHL debut. They put him in the center, with Dubois and Orlovsky on the wing, and it’s been a long time since Kent last played center—in the Q, that had always been Jack’s position, and Kent liked being on the right wing, but now he remembers that he used to fucking _love_ playing in the center, too.

They wipe the floor with the Aeros, and the entire time he’s on the ice, Kent can’t stop thinking that maybe if Jack hadn’t overdosed, _Kent_ would’ve gone to the Aeros instead of Patrick Cranston, the second overall draft pick, and _Kent_ would be getting fucking destroyed in Vegas. Or maybe, with Kent on the team, the Aeros would be destroying the Aces, who the hell knows. 

He knows it’s only the first game, and the regular season hasn’t even started yet, but they’re doing _something_ right, because they’re up by four at the end of the second period, and Kent scored twice and got an assist.

“Look, dude,” Thacker says to Kent back in the locker room before the start of the third period, “whatever the fuck you’re doing? Just keep doing that. Shanksy, Sasha, keep them out of the fucking crease, and don’t let Cranston score. We can’t blow this now, okay?”

They don’t blow it. The Aeros get one goal in, but when the buzzer blares to sound the end of the third, they’re still up by four after Jax scored three minutes before the end of the period, and the whole thing ends 5-1 in regulation. 

It’s a fucking _amazing_ feeling to win a game in the NHL, and the beat reporters are all clamoring for a quote from Kent once he’s out of the shower and sitting in his stall in the locker room, packing up his equipment.

“Do you know that it’s the best preseason opener in the history of the franchise?” one of them asks as Kent looks up from his bench. There’s a camera pointed at his face, getting all up in his business, and they’re waiting for him to react in some way. 

Kent had no idea, actually, but he’s gonna take it. Not too shabby, for an NHL debut. 

“We all rallied today, and we’re definitely hungry for these wins,” he says, because he’s been saying this for years. Usually, though, he had Jack to his right. “We certainly want to keep the momentum going, moving into the regular season, and we want to keep them coming. So it’s great to start the preseason on such a high note.”

The reporter laughs. “You must be pretty happy for yourself, too. I mean, what a way to debut in the league. Two goals and an assist in the first game is pretty unheard of for a rookie, even for the first overall draft pick.”

Kent smiles and shrugs almost imperceptibly. “Yeah, I’m pretty stoked to be kicking the season off with some points to my name,” he says. “That’s the dream, right? So I’m really happy to be living it, I gotta admit.”

It doesn’t hit him until he leaves the locker room and stops to use the washroom on his way out. 

He shakes all over and slides down the wall to sit with his head between his knees, hyperventilating a little, and he thinks, _I want to tell him all about it_.

It’s an exhilarating feeling, and he’s still riding the adrenaline high, and he knows that when he finally crashes, he’s going to crash _hard_ , but for now, he just breathes and tries not to wonder if Jack got to watch the game at the rehab center. If he even wanted to watch it in the first place.

He isn’t sure which answer would be worse.

.

Their first game of the regular season is also their home opener against the Kings, and Kent wakes up early in the morning, gets into his running clothes, puts his earbuds in, cranks his workout music up and goes for a quick run to clear his head. 

Jack always liked jogging a lot more than Kent did, and he used to knock on the door to Kent’s room at their billet family to drag him out of bed at some ungodly hour just to go running, their breath turning to mist in the chilly autumn air. Mornings in Nevada are warm, the air dry and dusty when there’s wind coming from Mojave, but Kent still runs every morning before practice—he has a favorite route by now, one that takes him around his residential area and out into the city, and he sometimes stops for a mango smoothie on his way back, then walks the rest of the route home.

The minute he walks into the air-conditioned space, Kent can feel the way the sweat on his back turns unpleasantly cold, and the rapid change in temperature makes the hairs on his forearms stand up.

It’s almost empty this time of day—the people who get there before opening time are already gone, and the early morning crowd hasn’t arrived yet—so there’s only one person in line in front of Kent, a haggard-looking girl ordering her Americano with extra shots to go. She looks at him briefly on her way out, then again over her shoulder as she approaches the door. 

The girl at the counter smiles at Kent. 

“Hi, what can I do for you today?” she says in a chipper voice. “Let me recommend our new blend, it’s very mild but flavorful.”

Kent shakes his head. “No, thanks,” he says, handing over his credit card. “Just a small melon smoothie.”

The girl nods and swipes the card, then hands it back. “I’ll make that a grande, on the house.”

Kent pockets his wallet and leans against the counter, watching the girl work. 

“Good workout?” she asks. Her name tag reads _Ellie_ , and she’s been nothing but professional so far, but at the same time, Kent _knows_ when he’s being flirted with, and this is _definitely_ one of those times.

“Could be worse,” Kent says, shrugging, and he smiles back when she smiles at him. 

In theory, he could ask for her number, and he’s pretty sure she’d give it to him. And maybe that’s what he needs, a quick fuck to forget about Jack’s face inches away from Kent’s, their lips almost touching, and the way Jack would always close his eyes right before he came, like it was too much to look at Kent in that moment. In retrospect, maybe that was a clue—or maybe it was just another thing that Jack did. And this—this is what Kent fucking _hates_ , that what happened and the way Jack shut him out completely after has made him question _everything_ , made him second-guess each and every step he has taken with Jack from the day they met, and the only person who could give him answers wants nothing to do with him.

So maybe he should ask the girl for her number, but he can’t even remember the last time he did anything with a girl, the last time he _wanted_ to do anything with a girl—before Jack, definitely, back when he was new to Rimouski, back when he thought he could never have _Jack_.

He has no idea when that changed, slowly, over time, only that it did.

So he just takes his smoothie, grabs a straw, thanks the girl and leaves, feeling like a dick.

The Aces have a morning practice at nine, so Kent showers, eats a quick breakfast, grabs his gear and leaves. Cal is already waiting for him in the underground garage when Kent gets down, a travel mug filled with coffee in one hand, his gym bag in the other. 

They take Kent’s car to the arena and arrive with a few minutes to spare. Most of the other guys are already in the locker room, changing, and Kent drops his bag by the bench at his stall, starts to peel off his street clothes to get into his under armour, then methodically tapes his stick.

It’s open practice, which means fans in the stands—there are not many of them, but there are _some_ , and some of them even wave at Kent when he skates out. Some girls have a funny sign with _Marry us, Kent Parson!_ written in large, glittery capital letters.

Kent gives them a thumbs-up and a wink, watches them go all red and giggly. Shanksy nudges him in the side. 

“Already holding court?” he asks and waggles his eyebrows like the obnoxious douche he is. 

“Maybe that’s because my face doesn’t look like it’s been run over with a lawnmower,” Kent says, laughing, and Shanksy laughs, too, because apparently the dude knows how to take a joke. “Ever thought of that?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Shanksy says, and he pats Kent on the cheek. “You are the prettiest princess in this tower.”

Kent trips him up with his stick.

.

The Kings don’t go down without a fight, and Kent gets cross-checked towards the end of the first period by some goon called up from the AHL who didn’t make it higher than the fourth line but still felt the need to assert dominance. It’s a two-minute minor for the goon, and a few minutes on the bench for Kent, to let him get his bearings before he skates back out to deafening applause, so clearly, despite the pain in Kent’s lower back, he got the better end of this deal. 

He scores on a power play five minutes into the second period, and Orlovsky fistbumps him right before the other guys pile on top of Kent, yelling in his ears. 

He’s just scored his first official goal in the NHL. 

He has no words to describe the feeling, and the adrenaline rush feels fucking _unreal_ , like Kent could do and be _anything_ he wants. What he _really_ wants, though, is for Jack to be here, for Jack to be scoring his first goal in the NHL, too, for the two of them to race for the Calder—hell, to race for the fucking Art Ross, defying all expectations.

In the end, Kent gets an assist on Thacker’s goal in the third, and they win 2-1 in regulation. 

And yeah, the crowd might be mostly tourists, but they sure go fucking _wild_ as soon as the buzzer sounds the end of the third period. Kent is shaking a little on the inside as they skate off the ice, the impossible to unravel tangle of emotions rattling around his chest like a tumbleweed across the highway. It’s a good feeling, for the most part, and Kent doesn’t cry in the shower, even if it’s a close thing, but his eyes still sting, and there’s a painful tightness in his throat. 

He’s exhausted, physically and mentally, and after the presser, where _everyone_ wants to know _everything_ about Kent’s first official goal in the NHL, he begs off the celebrations.

“What the fuck, Parse,” Orlovsky says, and Kent just shakes his head. 

“Another time, boys. I’m fucking _wiped_.”

On his way home, he wonders, again, if Jack watched the game. If he saw Kent score his first real points in the NHL. If he felt anything at all.

When Kent checks his phone, back at his apartment, he discovers that he has a voicemail from Bob. 

“Congratulations, son,” Bob says, and Kent wants to punch something. “That was a great goal, we’re so happy for you, Alicia and I. Please, call me whenever you’re free.”

And the thing is—he knows that he should call, that Bob only wishes him well, that he’s fucking _proud_ of Kent, the way Kent’s own father had never even tried to be, but he doesn’t know if he can get through this conversation without doing something embarrassing, like crying into the receiver.

In the end, he leaves it be, and hopes that Bob understands.

.

They go on a roadie after their home opener, three back-to-back games against—in order—the Coyotes, the Sharks, and the Ducks, and Kent gets Griffin for a roommate. They ask him if he’s okay with it, and, to be honest, he still doesn’t particularly like the guy, but he just shrugs and says it’s okay, because, really, whatever. Kent can roll with it. 

When they first arrive in Arizona, Griffin gives the distinct impression like he’s walking on eggshells around Kent, like Kent is a ticking time bomb ready to go off, and, frankly, this pisses him off more than anything else. 

“Just quit it,” he says after dinner, when Griffin asks Kent if he wants to use the shower first. Earlier, he asked if Kent wanted the bed on the left or the one on the right. Then he asked if Kent would mind him using the only outlet on this side of the room to charge his phone. “I get it, you’re fucking sorry. I said it was okay. So stop acting like I’m gonna flip out on you any second now, _Jesus_. Now, I’m gonna go out to find a vending machine and buy some junk food. You want anything?”

Griffin looks up from where he’s hunched over his laptop on his bed. “A granola bar?” he says, and he sounds surprised that Kent even asked. And yeah, so maybe Kent does hold grudges, but he’s not that much of a petty asshole. 

A lot of people believed Jack did coke. A lot of people _still_ believe that. He can’t fight each and every one of them.

He finds a vending machine at the other end of the hallway, and he gets a granola bar for Griffin and a pack of peanut M&M’s for himself, then slowly walks back to his room.

“No, no, it’s cool,” Kent hears Griffin say as soon as he opens the door. “I got Parson assigned as my roommate, it’s all good. Yeah, we’re playing tomorrow, then straight back to Cali, we finish in Anaheim.” There’s a moment of pause, and Griffin looks up to glance at Kent. “Yeah, yeah, you too. I’ll call you after the game. Yeah, I gotta go now, but I’ll be in touch, okay? Bye.”

Kent throws him the granola bar, and it lands on top of the comforter. “That your mom?” he asks. 

Griffin shakes his head. “Dad. Mom’s still at work, probably.”

Kent checks the time. “Shit, at this hour? I mean, your folks are up in Toronto, right?”

Kent sits down on the mattress with his legs crossed, and opens the pack of M&M’s, then offers some to Griffin, because he’s not a total dick and his mom raised him right. 

“Yeah,” Griffin says, then chews on the M&M’s for a moment before continuing, “Dad’s a vet, you know? Got honorably discharged after they dropped an ordnance crate on his hand, shattered eight bones. He stays at home, mostly, does some odd jobs on the side, and mom works full-time now. So it’s, you know.”

Kent thinks about his own father, who fucked off right before Sam turned three, leaving them with a crappy apartment and a few unpaid debts that people came to collect soon afterwards. 

Kent was almost seven at the time. 

He still remembers the morning he woke up and realized his father was gone for good this time, not just for a few days, or weeks, or—on one memorable occasion—a few months. He had an early morning practice that day, and they had to take the bus because his dad took the car with him. 

His mom didn’t cry—she never cried, not about that, not where either of them could see, or maybe just not _ever_ , and Kent, too, remembers the sickening feeling of relief, deep in his gut, because this time, he didn’t have to hold out hope that his dad would come back, eventually. 

Sam—Sam was a different story, because she was too young to understand what really happened, and so she used to ask when daddy would be back every day before she went to bed and then as soon as she woke up in the morning.

He got in touch, once, back when Kent was first projected to go in the top three in the draft. Kent hung up after less than a minute, his hands shaking.

The only person he told about that phone call was Jack. Jack, who now hasn’t been returning Kent’s calls; Jack, who shut him out completely, and isn’t that fucking funny, the way things turn out.

“Yeah, I know,” Kent says eventually. “Must be nice, though, having one of your folks at home. You got any siblings?”

Griffin honest to god _smiles_. “Yeah, three younger sisters. Youngest one is nine.”

Kent can’t help it. He laughs. “Jesus Christ,” he says. “I just got one, and that’s about enough to handle on a good day. She’s a brat, but she’s kinda awesome, too.”

“They coming to watch you play anytime soon?” Griffin asks then, and Kent throws himself back onto the comforter to lie flat on the mattress, staring at the ceiling. 

“Not until Christmas,” he says. “Mom won’t be able to get any time off before then, and Sam is too young to fly on her own. Plus, there’s school. But they’re coming here for Christmas, and we have a game on the twenty-fourth, so they’re gonna be here to watch.”

It’s almost three months away, still, but Kent has learned how to manage the missing people part pretty early on in his life, and the string of billet families only helped with that, so it’s different for him than for those rookies who had the fortune—or misfortune—to play at home. He knows it hits them harder than it hits him, the long periods when it’s just them and the rest of the team. But Kent—Kent knows how to deal with that, how to channel all these feelings into focusing on the game, on being the best he can be. On being someone his family could be proud of.

And the thing is—he’s always had this silly dream of buying his mom a house in a nice neighborhood, as a way of saying thank you for everything she has done for him to get him to where he is now, but now, as Griffin slowly drifts off to sleep in the bed to Kent’s left, he finds himself looking at house listings in Westland Park and Whitehall, and—if Kent has his way—he won’t be coming back to their apartment in Groesbeckville once the season ends.

.

They win two of their three back-to-back games, and Kent scores four times, gets three assists. When he looks up the stats, he’s tied for the first place in points in the league. It feels unreal. 

His ribs are sore and still a little bit bruised from where he got checked into the boards towards the end of the third period in their last game against the Ducks, but he _still_ found the back of the net less than a minute later, so really, the joke is on them. 

Apparently, the Aces are off to the best start of the season in the—admittedly short—history of the franchise.

Kent has an interview with Sports Illustrated scheduled for the day after they get back home, and the alarm sounds at some ridiculously early hour for what’s supposed to be Kent’s day off. Well, mostly off, because there’s the interview, and there is going to be a quick photoshoot, just a few pictures to accompany the article, but at least there’s no practice. 

He gets downtown with ten minutes to spare, and the reporter is already waiting for him at the café—it’s a small, cozy place that apparently doesn’t get too busy this time of day, and they have an upper floor that’s mostly empty, apart from one couple in the corner. 

The reporter Sports Illustrated sent to interview him is a guy in his thirties, looking immaculate in his dress shirt and tie. Next to him, Kent feels severely underdressed, in his flannel shirt thrown over a tank top and the Aces snapback. Or maybe that’s just that special brand of weird that professional athletes and other famous people are allowed to be on account of the fact that they’re rich and famous.

“Hi,” the guy says, getting up from his armchair to shake Kent’s hand. “I’m Brent, it’s so nice to meet you. We’re so glad that you found some time for us in your busy schedule.”

Kent sits down in the plush armchair. There are throw pillows behind his back, and there’s smooth jazz trickling slowly out of the speakers, and the entire thing looks downright fucking _quaint_.

“I’m happy to be here,” Kent says, because it’s the right thing to say. 

They get coffee, and Kent gets a savory pastry, something spicy with feta cheese in it. It’s really, really good, and Kent has been starving even though he managed to grab a breakfast, so he devours it in a few quick bites. The guy—Brent—keeps scrawling away in his notebook, a voice recorder neatly put away next to his cup.

“So how have you been settling in, these past few months? Any big changes, coming from the QMJHL?”

“Well, the weather is a big one,” Kent says, and observes the way it gets a genuine laugh out of Brent. “But all joking aside, the whole playing field is on an _entirely_ different level. I’m honored to be playing with and against the best of the best in this sport.”

Brent nods empathetically, then writes something down in his notebook. “How’s the adjustment period going, then? It must have been quite a change, coming from the East Coast, after playing in Canada for two years.”

Kent takes a sip of his coffee. “Yeah, it’s definitely been a huge change for me, but sometimes change is good, y’know? And everyone here in Vegas has been so welcoming. The guys on the team are really good, and a lot of fun to play with, and we’re committed to building a strong, versatile team. We already have the groundwork laid out for us: we have an amazing goalie, solid, consistent D-line, and forwards who are really hungry for points. So it’s been great, knowing that we all have our eyes set on the same goal.”

They talk for a while after that, about Kent’s move across the country, what it’s like to live in Vegas on a day-to-day basis, what the team dynamic is like. Kent answers as best as he can, and this—this is the part he’s always been good at. Where Jack used to shy away from the spotlight, Kent didn’t really mind. Jack hated doing interviews—which might have had something to do with the fact that he had cameras shoved in his face from before he could walk and talk—but Kent didn’t mind fielding the questions and, over time, he got _really_ good at it. 

Journalists don’t scare him.

Once they’re done with their coffee, Brent falls silent for a moment, looking at Kent with scrutiny, like he’s considering something, then says, “You mentioned that your new teammates are great fun to play with, so I have to ask about that: how has it been, playing without Jack Zimmermann? You made quite the name for yourselves in the Juniors, some even considered you the best duo the hockey world has seen, and people were anticipating a lot of friendly rivalry between the two of you in the current season. So how do you feel now that Zimmermann—”

“No,” Kent says, and he can hear the low hum of his own blood rushing through his veins in his ears. “We’re not talking about that. Ask me whatever you want about _me_ , about Vegas, about the league, and I’m gonna answer. But we’re not talking about Jack.”

Brent looks taken aback, and he visibly struggles for something to say, and really, _fuck him_ , if he thought he could just come here and ask about _Jack_ , like the rest of those vultures, waiting to tear what’s left of Jack’s life apart. _Fuck them_. Fuck _all_ of them.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted—” he starts, but Kent interrupts him. 

“No,” he says, his expression stony. “This is off-limits. I don’t give a fuck what other shit you ask me about. But you don’t get to ask me about this.”

Brent takes a moment to compose himself, and Kent just stares at him, unblinking, _daring_ him to say one more word about Jack. 

After the interview is over—and it’s over quickly, thank fucking god—Kent drops by the gym at the ice center and proceeds to beat the shit out of a punching bag for the better part of an hour. Dubois comes into the gym somewhere halfway through, and he takes a look at Kent, then another, longer one, like maybe he’s concerned. 

“Bad day, Parse?” he asks, and it’s light, like he’s joking, but Kent recognizes it for what it is: an opening. 

He stops for a moment and steadies the bag with one hand, then shrugs his shoulders. 

“Could be better,” he says, because there’s no point denying the obvious. And, shit, maybe he should look for a shrink, too, for all the fuckload of good it did Jack, because he feels on edge all the time, and _this close_ to snapping at any second. This can’t be good for him.

He shrugs it off, though, the way he does everything that bothers him. It usually works. Usually. 

“Need a partner?” Dubois asks, but Kent just shakes his head. 

“Nah, I’m good.”

Dubois gives him another long look. “If you say so,” he says. 

Later, as Kent unwraps his hands, Dubois comes by to invite him to lunch, but Kent declines.

“Sorry, already made plans,” he says, thinking of his empty apartment, but he needs to be alone with his thoughts for a while, and he doesn’t think Dubois would appreciate his company right now. “Maybe another time.”

.

He skypes with his mother in the evening. She looks tired, the way she usually does, but at least she’s not working the afternoon shift today. 

“We miss you a lot, baby,” she says, her face grainy on Kent’s screen. The webcam in her laptop has always been shitty, but now it just irritates Kent, the way he can’t even see his own mother clearly, because she refuses to let him buy her a new, better laptop, but really, fuck that, she’s getting one for Christmas. For her birthday, she’s getting a fucking _house_ , and to hell with everything else.

“How have you been?” she asks then, and Kent feels like he’s ten years old again, away on a class trip and missing his mother. He didn’t go on many of those—they didn’t always have the money, and besides, they interfered with his hockey practice. His mom always wanted him to go, but Kent loved hockey more than he loved class trips, and he’d learned to prioritize at a pretty early age.

He smiles. “I’m good,” he says. “Keeping busy. The schedule is pretty crazy.”

His mother looks at him with the same sort of scrutiny that used to make Kent want to tell her _everything_ , because he was so convinced she could see right through him. 

“Kent, baby, don’t lie to me,” she says. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week. I know you work hard, but you shouldn’t look so exhausted.”

Kent takes a deep breath and shakes his head. 

“I’m fine, mom, really,” he says and observes as she bites her lower lip, pulls at the dead, chapped skin with her teeth. She always does that when she’s really concerned, and yeah, Kent may have his own tells that she can recognize, but so does she.

“Kent…”

He sighs and leans back in his chair, rubs at his face with his open palms. 

“Okay,” he says, and his voice doesn’t break, “okay, you wanna hear the truth? I’m not fine. I’m here, on the other side of the fucking country, and you’re over there, you and Sam, and Jack isn’t talking to me, and I fucking _found him_ half-dead, and I can’t forget how he looked, and I was with him on the way to the hospital, and now he won’t even talk to me.” Now that he started, he has no idea how to stop, and the words tumble out, one by one. “And he was— We were…you know, right? I never told you, but you knew, right? That he and I—” He wants to cry. He never really said the words to his mother. He always assumed she knew and chose to let him be, the way she would if he only liked girls. “You knew that we were…sleeping with each other, right? Mom?”

She nods quickly, pressing her lips together. “I know he’s important to you, baby,” she says. “I know you love him. I know.”

He presses the heels of his palms to his eyes and breathes. He needs to get the words out, otherwise it’s just gonna fucking eat him up from the inside. But he can’t, because if he says it out loud, then it will be real. 

He never really said it. He definitely never said it to _Jack_ , and Jack never said anything back, but they _knew_.

At least that’s what Kent thought. Now—now he’s not sure Jack ever loved him back. 

“How’s Sam?” he asks as if they weren’t constantly texting each other, his voice hoarse. 

“Kent, you can’t destroy yourself over this boy,” his mother says with a sigh, seeing right through his attempt at avoiding the topic. “I know you’re hurting, baby, but you need to take care of yourself first.”

Kent keeps his head propped against the wall, looking up at the ceiling instead of his mother’s face, because it’s easier when he doesn’t have to see the worry in the lines around her mouth and eyes.

“I know, mom,” he says. “I’m trying.”

When he looks back at the screen, his mom just nods and says, “I know you are. Take care of yourself, sweetheart, okay?”

Kent nods back, his throat tight. “I will,” he says.

.

They go on the road again soon after, come back with three overtime wins and one shutout.

Their next three home games are complete and total disasters. 

Kent is scoring points, because he’s _always_ scoring points, but Shanksy and Sasha are out on injuries, and their D-line could just as well not exist at all for all the good it’s doing them right now. Laakkonen is working his ass off in goal like the champ he is, but there’s just so much that you can survive in the crease before you either fall over or completely fucking lose it, and he’s slowly approaching both.

They already lost against the Preds and the Avs, and this fucking game is just the final nail in the coffin.

“What the fuck was that?” Kent spits out in the locker room after the second period. They’re down five against the Stars, and it’s fucking embarrassing, is what it is. “Look, if you want to fucking stand around and fondle your balls, then do that, but get the hell off the ice. If you want to play, then fucking _mean it_.”

They’re all pissed off, so he expects _someone_ to take a swing at him, but it’s not like he’s telling anything but the truth. That it’s a hard fucking pill to swallow is another matter entirely.

They manage to get their shit together enough to tie the result by the end of the third, and they go into overtime just to lose within five minutes. Kent is so fucking livid he breaks his stick against the wall on the way to the locker room.

He stays in the shower for so long his fingers start to prune, but he’s so fucking done with _everything_ that he can’t be sure he won’t lose it the minute he looks at his teammates back in the locker room. 

So he waits until they clear out to lick their wounds somewhere away from the public eye, then changes into his street clothes, gets into his car and googles the address of the nearest gay club.

He tries to talk himself out of it as he drives downtown, fingers tapping nervously against the steering wheel. Then he’s pulling over into the parking lot a few blocks away, and now there’s no going back. He _wants_ to do it. He’s never been at a gay club before, and he’s scared and excited at the same time, and, really, people here don’t give a flying fuck about hockey. As far as the locals are concerned, Kent is _nobody_.

The club is dark and loud, and packed full of people. Some of them throw glances in Kent’s direction as he passes through the dance floor to get to the ground-floor bar. He’s being cautious, and he’s _not_ being stupid, so he doesn’t try to order alcohol, even though the bouncer looked the other way at the door and Kent could really use a drink right now, just to get the right kind of courage, but not enough to actually get him tipsy; he orders a coke instead, and the bartender smiles at him. 

“Haven’t seen you here before,” he says. “First time?”

Kent jerks back instinctively, thinks that maybe he’s just _that_ obvious, but then he realizes the bartender was probably just asking about this particular club, not the entirety of Kent’s clubbing experience.

“Yeah,” he says, then takes a sip of his coke. “I…yeah.”

The club is pretty busy, but there are two other guys behind the bar as well, so Kent doesn’t really feel that bad when he asks, “What’s your name?”

The guy is ginger, and he has lots of freckles, and just a hint of stubble, and he looks _nothing_ like Jack.

“I’m Carver,” he says. “You?”

Kent hesitates for a moment. It’s not a particularly popular name, but it’s not _that_ rare, either.

“Kent,” he says, and immediately regrets it. He should’ve just lied, it would be easier for him and harder for anyone who’d want to expose him. Plausible deniability.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” the guy—Carver—asks, and Kent looks up, slightly alarmed, but Carver just smiles. “It’s the accent, man. Gets you every time. Up north somewhere? New Jersey? New York?”

Kent laughs, but he feels faintly sick. “You have a good ear,” is all he says. 

Carver’s smile grows wider. “One of my finer qualities, I’m told,” he says. “I also make a mean Bloody Mary. So what do you think about the local scene?”

He asks the question like he expects Kent to have any point of reference for this. Like he didn’t grow up in a hockey locker room, where _fag_ got tossed around as casually as _fuck_ ; like he didn’t think his heart would give out when he finally got the courage to blow Adam Wyatt in an empty equipment room after practice, his hands shaking as he pulled the zipper down; like he’s _used_ to going out to gay clubs and he could tell the difference.

“It’s okay,” he says, feigning indifference, and he shrugs. “It’s a nice place.”

That’s not even a lie. The club _is_ nice, the décor classy instead of just tacky, and Kent likes it, even if he likes sports dive bars better.

Carver looks at him, then smiles, and this time, the smile is inscrutable.

“Not your scene, huh?” he says, but there’s no bitterness or malice in it.

Kent shrugs again. “It’s, you know. Not my _usual_ scene. But it’s nice, I like it.”

He can see the looks some of the guys are giving him, and he briefly contemplates going out onto the dance floor, but he actually doesn’t feel like dancing, and he remembers the way Jack used to rib him about his dancing skills, so he stays put, drinking his coke that’s gone flat in the meantime and observing the people around him, glancing to the side at Carver from time to time. 

“Not in the mood for dancing?” Carver asks after a while, once the crowd at the bar scatters for a moment. 

Kent shrugs. “Don’t really feel like it today.”

He looks up. They can’t be more than two-three years apart in age—it’s just the stubble that makes Carver look slightly older.

“Want another drink?” Carver asks then, and he leans against the counter on his elbows, pointing to Kent’s glass with his head. “On the house.”

Kent just shakes his head. “No, thanks. I’m good for it. I’ll get another coke, though.”

Carver laughs, but it’s not mean-spirited. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. I can see you’re not legal to drink yet, and I do like my job, you know? I wouldn’t be offering you alcohol.”

Kent feels silly, and it hits him all over again, that outside, he might be the hottest shit the hockey world has seen since Gretzky and Bad Bob, but here, he’s just another guy who’s not old enough yet to get himself a drink, trying to flirt with the bartender and failing miserably.

He wonders if Carver keeps talking to him only because he wants Kent to come back, rack up some business. That’s what bartenders _do_ , isn’t it?

He gets up to piss, and when he walks into the washroom, the music is suddenly reduced just to the steady, rhythmic pounding of the bass, deep in his body. He gives himself a moment to compose himself, washes his face with cold water and his hands twice, just to have something to do. Kent knows he should probably just call it a night, but it’s early November, and the last time he got off with another person was the night Jack overdosed, just a few hours earlier.

Still, he hasn’t even approached anyone, and before he came here, he’d thought it would be different, he’d thought he would be much bolder than that, that he would go out there and have some pretty boy suck him off in one of the cubicles before midnight. But it’s already almost half past, and all he did was drink some coke and talk to the bartender.

He goes back to the bar and, to Kent’s surprise, his place is still unoccupied. He sits with his drink for a while, and a very drunk, very stoned guy tries to hit on him for a moment, before his slightly less drunk, less stoned friends come to collect him. They say sorry to Kent, but he just waves them off.

“No worries, it’s all good,” he says, then watches them stumble across the dance floor. 

“I thought you’d already gone.”

When Kent turns around, Carver is standing in front of him again, pouring gin for some guy’s gin and tonic, and he smiles when Kent turns to face him. 

“Nah,” Kent says. “Just had to piss. Think I’m gonna head home in a moment, though.”

He’s about to slide off the barstool, get his shit and get going for real when Carver says, “Wait.” He pauses for a short moment until he’s sure he has Kent’s attention, then continues, “My shift ends in,” he looks at his watch, “twenty minutes. If you wanted to, you know. Get out of here. No sweat if you don’t, though. I just…you didn’t really look like you had a lot of fun today.”

Kent laughs, but there’s not much amusement in it. He didn’t think he was that easy to read. 

“Yeah, sure,” he says, because Carver has been really nice to him the entire evening, and he’s hot, and Kent doesn’t have to look at him and think of Jack, and that’s enough for him. “Got anything specific in mind?”

Carver wipes down the counter and puts away the gin bottle. “We could go to my place,” he proposes. “I live just a few blocks away from here. You got a car?” Kent nods. “Okay, you can just follow me, then.”

They go out together around one, and Kent gets into his car while Carver goes to retrieve his own from the employee parking lot at the back of the building. It’s a short ride to Carver’s place, short enough that Kent doesn’t manage to talk himself out of it, for the second time that evening. 

Carver rents a condo on the second floor of a building that’s not very different from the one Kent lives in, and he lets them in quietly, trying not to wake up the neighbors with the jangling of his keys. 

“Come on in, make yourself at home,” he says, tossing the keys into a bowl by the door and toeing off his shoes. “Want a drink? Like, a real one this time?”

And, Jesus, Kent could _definitely_ use a drink right about now, but he needs to have a clear head for this. 

“Just water, thanks,” he says, looking around the living room area. There’s a lot of open space, and the apartment is sparsely furnished, but it just looks effortlessly minimalistic instead of empty.

Carver pours himself a drink and gets a glass of water for Kent, and there’s an awkward moment where Kent has no idea what to do—should he sit? Would that be presumptuous. In the end he decides, _fuck it_ , and sits down on the grey couch, taking a drink from his glass from time to time. 

When Carver sits down across from Kent, on the other side of the low coffee table, he doesn’t seem like he’s in a hurry. 

“Nice place,” Kent comments, because it’s the truth, and Kent wants to be polite. 

Carver laughs quietly. “Thanks. My big sis decorated it. She does this shit for a living, that’s why it’s so neat and everything goes well together.”

Kent finishes his water in two long gulps and puts the glass down. “Look,” he says, “I know you didn’t bring me here to discuss fucking home décor. So how about we get to it?”

He knows he’s probably being a bit of an asshole right now, but he signed up for a quick fuck, not a goddamn date. This is the last thing he needs right now—to get this close to someone again. 

Carver seems more amused than offended. “Sure,” he says, as easygoing as ever, and it calms Kent down and sets his teeth on edge at the same time. “Would you mind if I showered first real quick, though? I just did an eight-hour shift and I’m not the fun kind of sweaty right now.”

Kent waves him off. “Sure, knock yourself out. It’s your place.”

He spends the few minutes Carver is in the shower scrolling through his new phone. He thinks about signing up for Twitter—he knows the Aces want their players to have some sort of internet presence, and it’s not like Kent doesn’t check Twitter anyway, so who knows. It’s a spur of the moment decision, but he makes a profile, sets the draft picture as his profile photo, because he hates himself, apparently, but it will have to do for the time being, follows the official Aces account, then closes the app. It’s not like he’s gonna livetweet his gay hookup for the entire world to see. When he opens the app just for a second a few minutes later, he sees that the Aces account followed him back and tweeted about it, and he really doesn’t envy the poor sucker who’s still working at this hour on a Friday night—well, Saturday morning, technically. 

He already has a few followers, even though his profile and his timeline are completely empty.

Carver finally gets out of the shower, in nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist, and Kent can appreciate the efficiency of this—they’re here to fuck, after all, not exchange pleasantries. 

He gets up from the couch and loses the shirt in one smooth motion, throws it back on the sofa. Carver whistles.

“Military or sports?” he asks, taking in Kent’s abs and biceps.

“Funny,” Kent says, closing the distance between them in a few quick strides, then bites at Carver’s lower lip. 

“Okay, okay, I got the message, loud and clear,” Carver says, laughing. “I’m not asking, all right?”

Kent kisses him then, because he doesn’t have any weird hang-ups about kissing his hookups, and pushes Carver back until the backs of his calves hit the armchair. Kent digs around in his wallet for a condom, because he’s not fucking stupid, and getting scratched for health reasons because he got an STD giving head would be not only idiotic but also humiliating, then unwraps the towel from around Carver’s waist and goes to his knees. 

“You mind?” Kent asks, gives Carver’s dick a few strokes, then rolls the condom on. 

Carver just laughs, then says, “By all means.”

Kent has always liked giving head, even if he sort of hates the taste of latex in his mouth, and he knows he’s damn _good_ at it, so he just goes to town on Carver, takes him in deep and thanks god for his nonexistent gag reflex, and he smiles around the dick in his mouth when he hears Carver whisper a breathless, “ _Fuck_ ,” above him. 

He doesn’t think about Jack even once while he’s blowing Carver, but then again, he tries not to think about anything at all, just in case. He can still remember the first time he’d gone down on Jack, the way he shivered under Kent’s touch, the way he came in no time at all even though he tried to fight it, but Kent didn’t even care, too into it to give a fuck.

He couldn’t believe he was the first one who got to touch Jack. 

Carver’s thighs tense under Kent’s hands, and he pulls off quickly, then strokes Carver slowly, lazily as he asks, “Do you want to fuck me?”

Carver pulls Kent up and kisses him. “How about I suck you off instead?” he says. “Come on, there’s an actual bed in the bedroom. Unless you don’t want—”

“No, no,” Kent says, stretching above Carver and waiting for him to get up. “Bedroom is good.”

They kiss some more on the way there, and then Kent finishes Carver off with his mouth, strips the condom off just before the orgasm hits him to let him come all over Kent’s hand. 

“You’re pretty good at this,” Carver says once he can catch his breath again, and Kent bristles.

“You sound surprised.”

Carver laughs quietly. “No, no,” he says, “it’s just that you’re…really young.”

Kent gives him an unimpressed look, then wipes his hand on the corner of the sheet. “I had no idea senior citizens looked so good these days,” he jokes. “You’re what, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

“Twenty-two.”

Kent lies back on the bed, then props himself up on his elbows and looks at Carver. Kent is hard in his jeans, and he desperately needs to get off now—giving head always made him even more turned on and he hasn’t had sex in _months_.

“Okay, then,” he says, looking Carver straight in the eye, like he’s issuing a challenge. “Go ahead, blow my mind.”

Carver smiles. “See, that’s not the only thing I’m about to blow.”

Kent groans, but then Carver actually touches him, and it turns into a moan that on any other occasion Kent would consider pretty fucking embarrassing, but right now he’s too far gone to care. Carver sucks him off slowly, thoroughly, and then he reaches for a bottle of lube from the nightstand to slowly ease a finger into Kent, crooking it a little, adding another after a moment, and Kent is almost gone right then and there. He fights the orgasm for a short while, his back arching off the bed and his toes curling into the mattress, and then he comes with his eyes screwed shut. When he opens them again, he realizes that his cheeks are wet.

.

The bravado leaves him somewhere around three a.m. and he stumbles out of Carver’s bed in a panicked daze, woken up from a brief, almost feverish nap. He feels overheated, his hands clammy and his throat parched. He doesn’t regret the hookup, but he can’t be here either right now, sharing space with this guy he’s known for less than six hours and who fingered him just less than ninety minutes earlier until Kent nearly cried and then came, biting his lip to keep himself from making noise until he almost bled. 

Carver stirs awake as Kent is putting his jeans on, and he looks on, confused, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“I’m sorry,” Kent says, trying not to freak out. “I’m sorry, I gotta go, I’m sorry…”

He scrawls his number on a random piece of paper and leaves it on the bed. 

“Call me, okay?” he says, and he realizes how he must look to Carver right now, but he can’t worry about this, because it’s the least of his problems right now. “I’m really sorry, dude, I really liked hooking up with you, I just…need to not be here right now, okay? It’s got nothing to do with you.”

He’s almost out the door when Carver catches up to him in the hall and pushes a piece of paper into Kent’s hand. For a moment, Kent thinks it’s the number he’s just written down for Carver, but when he opens his palm, he sees unfamiliar digits.

“Don’t be a stranger, yeah?” Carver says, and Kent nods numbly before he goes. 

It’s not until he’s in the car that he can really breathe.

He wants to call his mom, but it’s six a.m. in New York right now, and he doesn’t want to scare her, calling her this early in the morning to tell her that he just freaked out for no reason whatsoever over a random hookup with a guy, so he just spends the next twenty minutes in his car, taking deep, painful breaths and trying to understand _why_.

It wasn’t about the sex, he knows that. It was about the fact that he woke up next to someone, and then he remembered that someone wasn’t Jack. And that—that’s much harder for him to admit.

By the time he gets back to his apartment, it’s a little after four, and he drinks a glass of water, then heads straight to bed, still reeling a little from earlier, but when his head finally touches the familiar pillow, he falls asleep almost instantly and sleeps without dreams.

.

Jack gets out of rehab the week before Christmas, and, against his better judgment, Kent tries to call him once, twice, three times before he stops when Jack doesn’t pick up even once. 

He calls Bob instead. 

“I don’t understand why he won’t even talk to me,” he says, his heart up in his throat, threatening to choke him. “I just don’t— I don’t know what I did wrong. We were _fine_ , and then…then we weren’t, and I don’t understand _why_.”

“It’s not your fault, son,” Bob says, and Kent wants to believe him so fucking much it hurts. “It’s not anyone’s fault.”

He goes to practice in a daze that day, and he laces up his skates listening to Thacker talking about how he read about Jack being spotted leaving the rehab facility this morning on some fucking gossip site that doesn’t give a shit about _Jack_ , only about the hits he gets them. Everybody loves a train wreck.

Except it’s not a train wreck; it’s a fucking _tragedy_.

So Kent grits his teeth and grips his stick and does suicide runs until he wants to puke, and then he pushes himself even more, until he almost collapses right there on center ice.

Cal gives him a look as they skate off the ice after practice, and Griffin stays behind to ask if he’s okay. 

“Fucking peachy,” Kent says, and okay, maybe that wasn’t very convincing. 

Griffin is waiting for him with Cal and Laakkonen in front of the locker room when Kent finally leaves, having showered and changed into his street clothes. 

“We’re going out,” Griffin says, and Cal nods when Kent looks around between the three of them, confused. “To eat the greasiest, tastiest, most unhealthy burger we can find in this fine city. And you’re coming with us.”

Kent does, mostly because he’s curious what this whole thing is about, but the guys don’t really say anything—there’s no intervention, no talking about the fact that Kent flies off the fucking handle every time someone so much as mentions Jack Zimmermann in less than favorable terms, that Kent always does a pretty good job of being present but not really _there_ whenever they go out or chill in the rec room after practice. 

They just sit and eat their burgers, and the guys make fun of Sasha’s new haircut (which is, admittedly, pretty hilarious), and they don’t speak about Jack fucking Zimmermann at all.

.

His mom and Sam arrive in Vegas on the evening of the twenty-third. Kent picks them up at the airport and drives them straight to their hotel to check in before they head out to dinner, and his mom tries to convince him he shouldn’t have booked them a room in the first place, because there’s enough space in Kent’s apartment to fit all three of them. 

“Mom, there’s literally just one bedroom and the couch, and the couch is not that comfortable to sleep on,” Kent says, exasperated, because he knows exactly why she’s doing this, but he still wishes she wouldn’t. She hasn’t had a real vacation in _years_ , she fucking deserves it. They both do.

So Kent drives them to the hotel and then takes them to dinner, and they sit at some overpriced restaurant, eating pretty amazing but still overpriced fillet mignon, and Kent watches the exhaustion slowly drain from his mother’s face, and that—that is worth _everything_.

Sam keeps giving Kent looks from across the table, and she kicks him lightly in the shin for good measure once or twice, just enough to get his attention but not enough to actually make it hurt. Kent has no idea what any of that means, and he wants to flick a straw wrapper at her head to get her to stop being annoying, like he used to do when they were kids, but they’re not at fucking Five Guys or some shit, and he has already been approached for an autograph once by some tourists from New England, so the last thing he needs is bad publicity.

He’s really glad they finally get to see him play in person, and it’s been so long since they last saw each other, except for the grainy Skype window that doesn’t even come close to the real thing, and it’s moments like these that make Kent realize how much he’s missing, being away from his home, from his family for weeks—months—at a time. He hasn’t really, properly lived at home since he was fifteen, and every time he went back to Albany, Sam was just a little bit older, a little bit different, and their mom has always looked ageless, but she, too, changed over time, in those almost imperceptible little ways that always hit Kent square in the chest when he looked at her after months and months spent apart. 

It’s a sacrifice, he knows, and he’s not the only one who’s made sacrifices here, but sometimes, when he can’t sleep at night, he wonders if one day he’s going to miss too much to be able to really feel like belongs in their lives. He knows they will always love him—his mom and Sam—but loving someone and knowing someone are sometimes two completely different things, and Kent is afraid that one day they will see each other after long months spent on the opposite sides of the country, and they just won’t _know_ each other anymore, because too much has changed while they were busy living their separate lives.

“How have you been, baby?” Kent’s mom asks over dessert, something with lots of chocolate and raspberries that leaves Kent feeling vaguely guilty buy also incredibly satisfied. “I know it’s been hard for you, but—”

“I’m fine, mom,” Kent says quickly, shaking his head lightly with a smile. “I’m playing good hockey, and we’re getting better as a team. The guys are pretty great, too.”

The thing is—he’s not even lying. He _is_ playing some spectacular fucking hockey, and his stats are through the goddamn roof; the Aces _are_ getting better, and it’s a slow, painful process, but they’re getting there; and the guys on the team _are_ a lot of fun to play with. But he still wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, remembering the dreams in which he came back _too late_ , and he thinks that if only he could talk to Jack once, it would convince him that his nightmares aren’t true. That Jack is somewhere out there, getting better without Kent. 

And he could even live with it—with the knowledge that Jack is better off without him. What he can’t live with is just _not knowing_. It’s like a wound that festers until it slowly drives him insane.

His mom doesn’t look like she buys this spiel, but they’re in a public place, so she lets it go. Sam just gives Kent another look.

“Bro, you look fucking miserable,” she says while their mother leaves to use the washroom. “You’re not fooling anyone, okay? What’s up?”

Kent shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Sam snorts. “Yeah, sure. I know Jack got released from rehab a few days ago. You heard from him yet, or is he still giving you the cold shoulder?”

“Believe it or not, not everything in my life revolves around Jack Zimmermann,” Kent snaps, lowering his voice to a quiet hiss. He immediately feels bad for going off on Sam, who hasn’t done anything wrong, apart from voicing the truth Kent would rather not voice. “Sorry, you’re right. But I’m coping, okay? There’s no need to dump all my shit on mom. She’s stressed enough as it is.”

Sam nods and twirls the fork between her fingers absentmindedly, her eyes focused on Kent. 

“She worries about you a lot,” she says, and Kent tastes the guilt like bile at the back of his throat.

“I know,” he says. “What I _don’t_ know is how to get her to stop. I’m _fine_. Everyone has shit to deal with, and this is mine. But apart from that, I’m _fine_.”

Sam doesn’t get to say anything else, because their mom comes back to the table. Kent flags down their waiter to get their bill and swipes his credit card before his mom can get any ideas, then asks the valet to bring his car around.

They say their goodbyes in front of the hotel, and before they go, Kent says, “We’re gonna kick ass for you tomorrow. That’s a promise.”

.

They light it the fuck up. 

The Flames don’t stand a chance in hell against them, and the atmosphere at the arena is pretty fucking intense, considering it’s Vegas and they have problems filling up the stands on a regular basis, but tonight it’s full house, and when Kent lands his first ever NHL hat-trick, they are all _screaming_. 

Kent feels on top of the fucking world right now, and Sasha slams into him, yelling something into his ear that’s half in English, half in Russian, but Kent gets the gist: he’s _the man_ , and Sasha fucking _loves_ him and also wants to kiss him. 

In the end, they finish five-null, which is, admittedly, not a great early Christmas present for the Flames, but a pretty awesome one for the Aces, all things considered. Kent gets his hatty and Laakkonen gets his shutout, and they get to move to third place in their division.

Kent is leading the league in points right now, and it feels _amazing_ , knowing his mom and sister get to see it in person.

After the game, his mom and Sam are waiting in front of the locker room, and when Kent gets out of the shower once the presser is over, Bagley leans against his stall and says, “Yo, Parser, you got visitors.”

He meets them outside, and his mom hugs him as soon as he steps out into the hallway. 

“I’m so proud of you, baby,” she says, and she doesn’t cry, but her eyes look glassy under the sharp, cold lights. 

Sam hugs him, too, and says, “Good job, bro. You kicked their fucking _asses_.”

“Language,” both Kent and his mom say at the same time, but it’s more of a family joke than a real reprimand. 

“Oh my god, there’s more of you,” Orlovsky says as he steps outside, looking between Kent and Sam. Kent gives him the finger.

“Fuck off, Jax,” he says. “It’s my baby sister you’re talking smack about.”

Sam just grins, because she’s a goddamn _brat_. 

“Let me just sort out my gear and we can go,” Kent says once Orlovsky leaves to catch a red-eye flight to Colorado. His folks couldn’t make it to Vegas, so he’s flying out for Christmas.

They go out to dinner even though it’s late, and halfway through their meal, his mom says, “I’m glad you’re not alone out here.”

Kent wants to laugh.

.

Christmas comes and goes, and it’s pretty great, all things considered. He’s not alone on the other side of the country, and he’s not spending his Christmas evening with a Kraft dinner and highlight reels on ESPN, so he’s counting this one as a plus. He’s definitely had worse. The all have.

On the twenty-seventh, his mom hugs him at the terminal and whispers, “Take care of yourself, baby.”

Kent nods, his face buried in the crook of her neck. “I will. Don’t worry about me.”

His mom laughs. “Kent, I _always_ worry. That’s what moms do.”

“I’m fine, mom,” he assures her. “I’m always fine.”

And that’s the thing, isn’t it? He’s always _fine_ , even when he isn’t, and he has no idea how to be anything else. Maybe that’s the entire fucking problem.

They have an optional skate on the twenty-eighth, and mandatory practice on the twenty-ninth, then a game the day before New Year’s Eve.

He’s invited to Shanksy’s birthday party on the New Year’s Eve, and he intends to go, alone, even though the invitation said, _WAGs welcome_. It’s not like he can bring fucking _Carver_ to that party. 

Kent finally musters the courage to call Carver after the optional morning skate which for Kent is anything but optional. Some of the guys are still out of town, taking advantage of the prolonged family time, but the entire starting roster is there, and they do drills, work on puck agility and practice puck control, then mess around on the ice for a while once the actual practice is done. Weaver and Smalls, the idiots, are trying figure skating lifts, because Smalls attended figure skating class for a few months in the Juniors to improve his skating skills and also because they have no self-preservation instincts, apparently. 

“Hey, morons,” Kent shouts, skating right past them, “if you break something, Paul is gonna fucking murder you.”

Once the practice is over, Kent is leaning against the wall next to the stalls, still just in his towel wrapped around his waist after the shower, fucking around on his phone. 

“You get yourself a girl, Parser?” Thacker asks, trying to peer over Kent’s shoulder. “Is that who you’re texting?”

Kent gives him the finger. “No, jackass, I’m texting your mom,” he says. Which, okay, maybe isn’t the pinnacle of fine repartee, but Thacker doesn’t deserve anything better.

He dials the number on impulse, sitting in his car in the underground parking lot at the arena. He knows if he lets himself really think about it, he’ll never pick up the phone. 

At first, the phone rings and rings, and rings, and Kent is about to give up, thinking that maybe Carver is sleeping off a late-night shift at the club, but then he picks up. 

“Hello?” Carver says, his voice raspy, and fuck, maybe Kent really did wake him up like a total asshole. Carver sounds confused, which probably means he didn’t save Kent’s number to his contacts, which means that maybe Kent is about to make a giant fucking fool of himself.

“Hi, uh, it’s Kent?” he says, and he hates the way he sounds, hesitant and nervous. “We met a few weeks ago? I—”

“Kent, yeah, I remember,” Carver interrupts. “I thought you wouldn’t call.”

Kent takes a deep breath. 

“Me too,” he admits.

“Why now, then?” Carver asks, and Kent can hear the rustling of the sheets on the other end of the line. 

Kent shrugs, even though he knows Carver can’t really see him. 

“I don’t know,” he says. “It’s just—”

“Listen, do you want to go somewhere?” Carver says before Kent can finish his sentence. “Together? Like a date?”

Kent wants to laugh. 

“I can’t,” he says, because his life is a fucking joke, apparently. “But I meant what I said, I really liked hooking up with you. So maybe we could…”

There’s a moment of silence where Kent thinks Carver will just tell him to go to hell. 

“Yeah, sure,” Carver says instead. “I’m not working today, so if you’re free…my place? We could do lunch.”

Kent, for one, is not looking for a fucking boyfriend, because he went first in the draft and the entire hockey world is looking at him, scrutinizing his every move, and the last thing Kent needs right now is to get outed like some fucking moron because he wanted to hold hands with a guy more than he wanted to play in the NHL. The other thing is—Kent doesn’t really want a boyfriend. He wants his best friend back.

“Sure, why not,” Kent says. “I could do lunch.”

It’s strange, hooking up in the middle of the day, stone cold sober, like it somehow makes it more _real_ than a quick, messy fuck with the lights off at the tail end of a long evening, and Kent pulls at the sheets as Carver fucks him, Kent’s face pressed into the pillow, and maybe it’s better like this, because he’s not sure if he could handle seeing Carver looking back at him right now.

He dresses slowly afterwards, his back turned to Carver.

“You’re new to this, aren’t you,” Carver says, and it’s not even a question. “The whole hookup thing.”

Kent stiffens, his fingers frozen where he’s buttoning up his shirt. And he wants to say no, but the truth is, apart from some teenage fumbling in equipment rooms and dark corners at parties, he’s only ever been with Jack.

“Look, I grew up in fucking _Utah_ ,” Carver says, and he touches Kent’s back gently when Kent looks at him over his shoulder. “I know what it means to live in the closet, believe me. So I get it, okay? And I really like you, so I’m up for whatever, but if you ever think you could do more, just let me know, yeah?”

“Look, I can’t—” Kent starts to say, then trails off. He can’t what, exactly? Be with anyone? Be with Carver? Be happy the way he wants to?

Carver shakes his head. “I know. We can still hook up, I mean, it’s fun, and you’re hot, and a pretty great lay, so, you know, I’m not complaining. It’s just so you know where you’re standing.”

Kent finishes buttoning up his shirt. “Okay,” he says. 

It’s still light out when he leaves Carver’s apartment, and Kent sits in his car for a long while, trying to get his bearings. Getting fucked has always left him pleasantly overwhelmed, and back before the draft, before _everything_ , he would lie next to Jack for a while after, trying to guess what was going through Jack’s head, trying to grasp what was going through his own.

That was the thing that frustrated him more than anything—off the ice, he couldn’t tell what Jack was thinking sometimes, and Kent knew Jack better than anyone else in the entire world, but in the end, he didn’t know him at all.

.

In early February, Kent gets a cat.

She’s ginger and tiny, and she fits inside the palm of Kent’s hand. 

Kent has no idea what he’s going to do when they go on their next roadie, but there’s a girl who lives one floor down and says hi whenever they meet in the laundry room, and Kent knows for a fact she has a cat, too, so maybe he could ask her to come by and feed the kitten while he’s away.

It’s not even like he _planned_ to get a cat in the first place, but one of Cal’s friends found her and couldn’t keep her, and when she brought the kitten by Cal’s apartment, Kent fell a little bit in love—and the rest, as they say, is history. 

“What the fuck, Parser,” Griffin says when he comes by the next afternoon. “You got a _cat_.”

It’s strange, how of all the people on the team, Griffin is the one Kent feels closest to, despite everything. Funny, how things turn out.

Kent laughs. “I know, right? But, dude, just look at her.”

The kitten is sleeping soundly, curled up on a blanket in a patch of sun, and Kent is equally charmed and terrified each time he looks at her. He has no idea if he is capable of taking care of another living being, but he desperately wants to think that he is. He already failed once, but maybe it’s easier with cats than with people.

It’s been _months_ , but his first thought is still to text Jack, attach a picture of the kitten and tell him all about this life Kent has been slowly making for himself on the other side of the continent.

_Look_ , he wants to text. _I have someone who needs me now._

“What’s her name?” Griffin asks, and he still looks like he’s laughing at Kent a little on the inside.

“Kit,” Kent says, then makes a dramatic pause. “Kit Purrson.”

Griffin bursts out laughing, waking up the kitten, who looks around sleepily, then yawns and goes back to sleep. Kent’s heart is melting a little. He’s always loved cats, but he could never have one, between school and hockey, and everything else, but now there’s nothing stopping him.

“Christ, Parser,” Griffin says, shaking his head. “Only you.”

.

February turns into March and the cat stays. Kent gets his downstairs neighbor—Audrey—to look after Purrson while Kent is on the road, and when he’s at home, he gets accustomed to sleeping with someone else breathing next to him. 

Purrson wakes him up early every morning with her paws on Kent’s chest, headbutting him in the chin until he finally wakes up.

He has a routine now—he wakes up, plays with Purrson for a little while and feeds her, goes for a run, goes to practice, hits the gym, comes home and naps with Purrson curled up in the crook of his arm, works out some more, figures out new plays and watches tape with his dinner. He plays at home and he plays on the road, and he keeps scoring, and he keeps not thinking about Jack.

He’s getting better at it, too, and where not so long ago there was an open wound in that place inside of him where Jack used to be, now there’s a scab that he picks at only from time to time. He knows that in time, the only thing left of that last summer of his childhood will be a thin, white scar and the memory of a white hospital waiting room.

They go on a long, exhausting roadie in the middle of March that takes them all over Canada, and they finish with a game against the Habs. 

When Kent skates out for warm-ups, Bob Zimmermann is in the stands. 

There’s no sign of either Alicia or Jack. 

They play well, and Kent scores twice, gets two assists, and he tries not to glance up at the management box, because every time he sees Bob’s face, he thinks of Jack, and this way lies madness. They win 5-4 in regulation. 

Bob drops by the visitors’ locker room just as Kent is coming out of the shower, and he stops in his tracks, his heart in his mouth, threatening to choke him. He hasn’t seen Bob in person since that morning he left him and Alicia in the hospital waiting room, his face white as a sheet and the taste of bile at the back of his throat.

The guys look star-struck, and right, not everyone is on a first-name basis with Bad Bob Zimmermann. He congratulates them on the win, and then he turns to Kent. They don’t hug, but Bob clasps Kent on the shoulder and squeezes, and Kent understands this gesture for what it is. 

Bob smiles. “Can we talk?” he asks, and Kent nods numbly, then throws some clothes on and follows him outside. 

“You played really well today,” Bob says once they’re out in the hallway. “You’re having a tremendous season, son, we’re all really proud of you.”

Kent notices how Bob doesn’t say _both_ , but _all_. He chooses not to think about it too hard, just in case it was a slip of the tongue. 

_My own father didn’t even call to congratulate me on making it to the NHL_ , Kent wants to say. 

He knows Bob thinks he hasn’t been a good father to Jack, but to Kent, he was the best father he’s ever had, and they’re not even family.

“Thank you,” Kent says, and he licks his lips nervously before asking, “Is Jack—”

“He’s with Alicia in Nova Scotia,” Bob says, shaking his head before Kent even has the chance to finish his sentence. 

Kent nods, and there’s a moment of silence where he can’t quite look Bob in the eye. 

“How is he?” he asks eventually. 

“He’s…better,” Bob says. “Look, Kent, whatever you think…Jack doesn’t hate you.”

“Funny,” Kent spits out. “‘Cause it sure fucking feels like he does.”

He regrets the words almost instantly, but it’s too late to take them back, and he waits for Bob to get angry with him, to deliver some harsh words of his own, to turn back on his heel and walk away, the way people he cared about have been walking out on Kent since he was seven fucking years old. 

Instead, Bob’s shoulders sag, and suddenly he looks his age, and it’s an almost earth-shattering experience, to finally realize that time catches up to everyone, even Bob Zimmermann. He’d never looked this old and this tired before Kent found Jack half-dead in their hotel bathroom and called Bob in the middle of the night. 

“I know,” Bob says. “And I know it must’ve been hard on you, but we just wanted you to know that whatever happened between the two of you, you’re still welcome in our home.”

Kent nods again, his throat tight. “Okay. And I’m sorry. For everything.”

Sometimes he thinks it was him who fucked Jack up. Then he realizes that Jack was fucked up long before he met Kent.

“And thanks for coming to watch us play, I know it meant a lot to the guys,” he says, then looks at his watch. “I gotta go, though, we’re leaving for the airport in, like, ten minutes, so…just tell him I’m sorry. And say hi to Alicia for me, okay?”

“It was really good to see you,” Bob says, and this time, he hugs Kent. “Take care of yourself, son.”

When Bob leaves, Kent gives himself a moment to lean against the wall to breathe with his eyes closed.

“Hey, Parser, you okay? The bus leaves in five, you coming or what?” 

Kent opens his eyes to find Cal standing in front of him, his bag slung across his shoulder.

Kent takes a deep breath, then another. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I’m coming.”

.

“Dude, how fucking _awesome_ was that? _Bad Bob Zimmermann_ came to watch us play. He fucking _came to congratulate us_. _Dude_.” Two rows behind Kent, Bagley is freaking out a little. 

“Please,” Smalls says in return, “he came to see _Parser_ play. We were, like, window dressing. Not that I blame him or anything, but last time I checked, none of us were on a first-name basis with Bad Bob Zimmermann. Except for Parser, the lucky fucker.”

“Don’t you feel lucky, Parser?” Griffin leans over the back of the seat and nudges Kent in the shoulder. 

Kent yanks one of his earbuds out. “Lucky as fuck,” he says. “It’s always great to relive that moment when you found your best friend unconscious in a fucking bathroom and had to call his parents in the middle of the night.”

There’s only dead silence on the bus after that, and then someone quietly says, “ _Jesus_ ,” and that’s that. 

They don’t talk about Bob anymore. Kent puts his earbuds back in and cranks the music up until it almost hurts. 

A few minutes later, someone plops down in the empty seat next to Kent. When he opens his eyes, he sees Griffin watching him intently. 

“Yo, dude, you okay?” he asks, lowering his voice. 

The rest of the guys are either sleeping or fucking around on their phones, or talking in quiet voices. Kent pauses his music and takes out his earbuds. 

“Fine,” he says, and Griffin snorts. 

“Yeah, like hell,” he says. “Come on, that’s just bullshit. You know it and I know it, and the rest of the guys probably know it, too.”

Kent uncurls one of his legs from under himself and pushes Griffin away with his foot. “Well, if you know it, and I know it, and the guys know it, then why won’t you fucking leave me alone for five minutes to deal with my shit?”

Griffin pushes back. “Because you’re part of a fucking team. Don’t think the guys haven’t noticed how you’ve been helping them since the season started. Come on, it’s not like we don’t know you don’t need all that extra practice after hours, we’re not fucking _dumb_. All that, _anyone wanna stay after to help me practice face-offs_ bullshit? We know it’s not for you.” 

Kent laughs, too loud for the quiet stillness of the bus. “Sure it is.” 

Griffin just gives him a look. “Yeah, Parser, whatever you say.”

The thing, though—the thing is, Kent is committed to making this team the best they can be, and he might not be wearing a C or an A on his jersey, but all he knows about being a captain, he learned from Jack, and Jack has always been of the opinion that actions speak louder than words. So Kent doesn’t need to say it out loud, and he doesn’t need to hear about the team’s gratitude; what he needs them to do is fucking _win_. 

That is enough.

.

The rest of March is just one long, exhausting trudge towards the playoffs, and it leaves them bone-tired and aching all over, and by the last week of their homestead, Kent feels like he’s spread too thin over the ice, trying to be in all places at once, trying to make it work. 

They do, for the most part. They win some, and they lose some, but they win more than they lose, and Kent is still tied first for points in the league. He’s probably not getting the Arty, because Sedin has more goals than him, but he is probably getting the Calder, and that’s not bad at all, all things considered.

They climb to the second place in their division with sweat and tears, and pain, and Kent plays three games with an upper-body injury that would probably get him benched earlier in the season, but now they need everything they have to make that last playoffs push, and Kent _is_ just that fucking good, injury or no injury. The team needs him, so he grits his teeth, tapes his stick and skates through the pain.

Later, he’s icing his shoulder when Griffin walks in, Dubois on his heels. 

“What the fuck, Parser,” Dubois says, and he sounds angry. “For a smart guy, you’re so fucking dumb. What the hell are you doing, trying to injure yourself for life? You can’t play hockey with a busted shoulder.”

Kent looks up from where he’s sitting, half-naked, in his stall. The icepack is slowly starting to get warm.

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m not a fucking moron, I wouldn’t be playing if it was _really_ bad. It hurts, but I can take it. We have only a few games left. The team needs me.”

“Yeah,” Griffin says, straddling the bench one stall over. “The team needs you healthy and on the ice, not retiring after one season because you were too fucking dumb to take it easy for a few damn games.”

They scratch him for the next game, and Laakkonen is out, too, with a tendon injury, so they spend the game sitting next to each other, miserable and pissed off in equal measure. 

“Christ, someone fucking better wake up Holmwood, he looks asleep between the posts,” Laakkonen says in a quiet voice, leaning towards Kent. 

They lose. It’s a grueling, miserable clusterfuck of a game with too many penalty minutes on both sides, and it gets downright ugly a few times, and in the end, Sasha skates off to the box with a broken nose and a loose tooth. The other guy looks worse. There’s blood on the ice.

By the end of the second period, Kent is ready to gear up and get the fuck out there, pain in his shoulder be damned.

“I can’t watch this,” Laakkonen says as the Aces and the Ducks duke it out, trying to slowly slaughter each other on the ice.

It goes to overtime and then ends with a shootout, and Kent’s itching to get on the ice and stare down his opponent over the face-off circle before the puck drops, because he _knows_ he can be faster than whoever is on the other side.

In the end, they lose 7-6, and Kent watches the guys slowly skate off in the direction of the tunnel, their heads down and their shoulders hunched. It’s a miserable fucking feeling, full of frustration and impotent anger, because Kent _knows_ this could’ve ended differently if only he’d been on the ice.

They’re so close—so close to qualifying for the playoffs for the first time in the history of the franchise. Kent can’t fuck this up for them now; they _need_ him, and he needs them to succeed. He needs to not let them down.

.

He should probably stop doing this—calling Carver after lost games, when he feels worse than he looks, and hooking up with him like he wants Carver to finally realize that Kent is just a fucked up kid who just happens to be good at hockey and drop him like he’s been burned. Maybe it’s like the frog in the water—and Kent started out with the lukewarm stuff: new to the city, new to the gay scene, talking a big game but soft in the middle. If he’d started with the boiling point, he would’ve just opened with: I’m a closeted hockey player whose famous secret boyfriend overdosed at eighteen because the world is fucked up and the sport we play is fucked up, too.

But he calls Carver as soon as he’s back in his car, and when Carver picks up after a few rings, Kent doesn’t even have to ask. 

“Come over,” Carver says. 

They end up playing video games in the living room instead of fucking each other senseless, and Kent has no idea what to do with that. They play the fucking _NHL 09_ , of all things.

“You’re pretty good at this,” Carver comments from his spot on the couch while Kent sinks a mean wrister into the net top-shelf glove-side. It’s nothing like playing with an actual stick and puck, but he’s not about to admit that in front of Carver.

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” he says instead. It can mean anything. It doesn’t have to mean that Kent plays in the NHL. 

Carver smiles. “I bet,” he says.

Kent pauses the game and cups the front of Carver’s jeans in his palm, then lets it rest there, his fingers splayed against the fabric, his intentions clear. Carver licks his lips. 

“Yeah, I know,” Kent whispers with his mouth against the soft skin of his throat. He increases the pressure of his palm just a little, and Carver makes a quiet, almost inaudible sound. Kent can feel the way he slowly starts to get hard.

He pops the first button open, then the next and the next after that, and he reaches to tug Carver’s underwear down a little, then sinks to his knees in front of the couch. He has a condom in the back pocket of his jeans, and he rolls it on with swift, practiced moves, then closes his lips around the head of Carver’s dick. 

He doesn’t pull off until Carver is coming, Kent’s mouth still wrapped around him, cheeks hollowed. 

Kent presses the open palm of his hand against his own dick, trying not to come. He’s out of breath, and the back of his throat feels sore, but it’s also one of the best feelings in the world.

Carver kisses him in between deep breaths, and Kent, for once, thinks about nothing at all.

“I’m gonna miss you when you go on the road again,” Carver says, kissing along the line of Kent’s hipbone, unbuttoning Kent’s jeans and trying to push his underwear down. 

Kent freezes. 

“ _What_?”

Carver looks up at him, then stands up, reaching for Kent, but Kent just takes a step back, reeling on the inside. 

“What the fuck did you just say?” he asks, and he feels like he’s going to be sick. 

“Look, I watch hockey sometimes, okay?” Carver says, and Kent thinks that he knows now how Jack must have felt the entire time. He can’t breathe. “And I knew you didn’t want to talk about yourself, so I didn’t push. But I’m not stupid, you know? I’ve known who I’ve been hooking up with. Who I’ve been falling for.” 

He looks straight at Kent, and he looks like he’s about to cry, but Kent is just shaking on the inside. He needs to _go_. He needs to not be there. 

“And I don’t give a fuck who you are, out there, okay?” Carver continues, and Kent continues to stand there, his jeans half-unbuttoned and his heart lodged in his throat. “I didn’t fall for Kent Parson, the famous hockey star. I fell for Kent, the guy who kicks my ass at video games at one in the morning and likes pineapple on his pizza. I don’t care about the rest.”

Kent feels sick down to his core. 

“Good for you,” he spits out. “I don’t have that fucking luxury.”

Kent had a migraine blackout just once in his life, and it feels a lot like that—he goes, almost blind for a moment with the pain that erupts behind his eyes, his jeans still unbuttoned and his shirt wrinkled, his shoes unlaced. He doesn’t stop until he’s out of the building and in his car, and then he sits there for a long while until his body stops shaking. 

He doesn’t cry, but he presses the heels of his palms against the sockets of his eyes until it starts to hurt and he sees little white dots behind his closed eyelids.

Carver doesn’t come after him. 

He’s disappointed. 

He’s relieved.

Intellectually, he knows Carver was fucked either way. If he’d told Kent the minute he figured it out, Kent would’ve been out of there in an instant, too. There was no way this was going to end any other way, and Carver was screwed from the moment he put the name together with the face and the body he fucked into the mattress a few nights before.

The truly fucked up thing is—Kent thought he was _safe_. He thought that he had it all figured out, and that he was _safe_ , and really, he should’ve fucking known better. 

His phone beeps. 

The message reads: _you don’t have to worry, I’m not going to tell anyone_.

It would be so much easier if Carver were an asshole. Like ripping off a band-aid. He would go to the press, and Kent would be the first out player in the NHL, and his career would either crash and burn or survive, and then it would be _over_ , one way or another.

As it is, Kent is just another fucked up, closeted kid trying survive the NHL, nothing special about it.

It takes him over half an hour to finally move, jam the key into ignition and start the car. 

He thinks about calling his mom. About calling Jack. In the end, he does neither, just puts the car in drive and doesn’t break any speed limits on his way home, because the last thing he needs today is to get pulled over in the middle of the night for speeding.

At home, Purrson is waiting for him by the door when he turns the key in the lock. He picks her up and cradles her against his chest, warm and soft, and cries for the first time since he found Jack barely breathing on that bathroom floor.

.

They go on their last roadie in the beginning of April—three games on the East Coast, then back to Vegas for their final game of the regular season. 

Griffin sits next to him on the plane. 

“‘Sup, roomie,” he says, elbowing Kent in the side. Kent pulls his earbuds out and looks at Griffin. “How’s the shoulder?”

“It’s fine,” Kent says, and he means it. “Doc did a check-up on me yesterday, said it’s all good. I even got a clean bill of health and everything. You and Dube can stop fucking mother-henning.” 

Griffin half-nods, half-shrugs, then leans against the headrest and closes his eyes. Kent has no idea if he’s actually sleeping or just faking, but either way, he’s once again left to his own devices. 

The flight is long, and there’s nothing in the movie selection that Kent hasn’t already seen a few times over. He doesn’t feel sleepy and he doesn’t have a book with him, because he left it in the checked luggage like a fucking moron, which leaves him with a lot of time for thinking, which is never a good thing, in Kent’s experience. 

They’re so, so close now—so close to proving everyone wrong, so close to getting to the playoffs for the first time ever, and Kent is coming home to get them there, this team from an arid state far away from everything Kent has ever known. 

It’s a strange feeling, coming back to New York for these last three games that will decide everything, like going full circle. Kent still remembers his first hockey club in the suburbs of Albany, the smell of the old locker room and the weird Zamboni driver who liked to nap during work hours, hidden away in equipment rooms or storage closets. 

Children are cruel—that’s another thing he remembers from that time, when he skated in borrowed, ill-fitting equipment, because they couldn’t afford anything better and his mom worked double shifts just to pay for Kent’s ice time after their sad excuse of a father had fucked off to god knows where and hung them out to dry. 

There was a kid, two years older than Kent and twice as big, Kyle Waller, who used to pick on Kent and another kid who lived in the same neighborhood, because they were both small for hockey players and couldn’t afford Gretzky jerseys. The truth was, Kent could skate circles around him by the time he was eight. In the end, Kent went on to play junior hockey in Rimouski, and Kyle Waller stayed in Albany.

Sometimes, in those moments when the strangeness of it all—this life he’s living—hits him especially hard, Kent wonders what all those Kyle Wallers of the world are doing while he’s playing in the NHL. Sometimes he wonders if they didn’t get the better end of the deal.

.

Kent gets his mother and sister tickets for the first game he gets to play at MSG, right before playoffs, and they sit in the first row, just behind the glass. They’re both wearing Kent’s jerseys.

It’s a hard, fast, physical game, but it’s a _good_ game, too, and they win 3-2 in regulation. Kent scores once, assists with the two other goals, racks up even more points to his name and proves once again that what he did with Jack in the Juniors was not a fluke. That he deserves to be here—the local boy who went from a dingy rink to playing at Madison Square Garden in front of a full house.

They talk to the reporters in the visitors’ locker room, and Kent doesn’t even have time to shower before they let the press in, but as soon as they’re gone, he spends a long while under the hot spray, washing away the deep ache in his muscles. 

Once he’s done, his mom and sister are waiting for him in the hallway by the locker room doors. 

His mom kisses the side of his head, and Sam hugs him tightly. She has blue streaks in her hair now. Another thing he’d missed.

“You remember Adam, right?” his mom says then, and when Kent looks to the side, he sees Adam Wyatt, older and taller, but still unmistakably himself. When he smiles, it’s the same smile Kent saw after he sucked him off for the first time in an empty equipment room, choking on the unfamiliar, bitter taste at the back of his throat. “We ran into him at the concession stand.”

Kent smiles back and extends his hand. “Adam Wyatt, yeah. Haven’t heard from you in _years_ , dude,” he says, and the words roll easily off his tongue, like he’s not reliving his teenage sexual awakening in vivid detail. “What gives? You still playing?”

Adam shakes his head. “Nah, I’m in college, man,” he says. “My knee got whacked in the Juniors, didn’t even make it to the draft. It’s all good, though.”

His voice seems deceptively light, but Kent knows that tone, and Adam is not fooling anyone here. He’s definitely not fooling _Kent_. 

“Shit, dude,” Kent says. “Must’ve been rough.”

Adam smiles, and this time, it’s mostly sad. “Yeah,” he says. “It’s…you know, it is what it is, right? The only way is forward and all that.”

And the thing is, Kent is over Adam, has been for years, and it never amounted to anything beyond some clumsy fumbling in dark corners and Adam’s basement rec room, but it’s still almost surreal, running into your life-defining crush after playing a game at the same rink the guy you both idolized as kids used to play at once upon a time.

Two worlds colliding.

“So where do you go to school?” Kent asks, because it seems like a question you should ask someone who just admitted they had their career cut short by an injury and decided to go to college instead.

“I’m right here in the city,” Adam says in return. “NYU.”

Kent whistles. “Nice.”

Adam laughs. “You’re not doing too bad for yourself, either.”

Kent shrugs and leans against the wall. He’s almost certain that Adam is actually flirting with him.

His mom and sister need to be on the bus home in about half an hour—his mother is working the morning shift, and Sam has school, so they can’t stay to have dinner and talk, but Kent’s mom tells him not to worry and to enjoy himself. 

They say their goodbyes a moment later and when his mom and Sam disappear in the backseat of a cab, on their way to the station, Kent is left alone with Adam, who’s leaning against the side of the building, waiting patiently. 

“You got anywhere to be?” he asks when Kent approaches him slowly, hands in the back pockets of his jeans. His hair is a mess, still damp from the shower. 

Kent shrugs again. “We’re staying in the city tonight, but we have a curfew, so… What did you have in mind?”

Adam laughs. “Cute. Like you don’t know what I was about to say. What’s that about, plausible deniability?”

Kent thinks about it. He knows Adam, and Adam knows him—they’d been pretty close before Kent got drafted by Océanic, not best friends, exactly, but maybe something like it, and there used to be a time when Adam knew more about Kent than anyone else in the entire world. 

Then Jack came along, and everything changed, left a mark somewhere deep inside of Kent, etched into his bones, running in his blood like a fever that he cannot shake.

It would be familiar, if he said yes. It would be safe. There are not many people in the world Kent trusts with his secrets, but Adam is one of them. 

“Where do you live?” Kent asks, and that seals the deal, a point of no return. 

He sends a quick message to Griffin. It reads: _out for the evening. cover for me?_

It’s not self-sabotage, not exactly, and Kent knows he can’t allow himself to get scratched for the next game for stupid, bullshit reasons, but he also knows that if he doesn’t go now, this insistent buzzing under his skin will either never stop or drive him insane before it does.

Technically, he could still make the curfew. He still has three hours left. But he has no idea how far it is to Adam’s place, and New York is a big damn city. He could be living in fucking Rosedale, for all Kent knows.

“I’m sharing an apartment in Greenpoint,” Adam says. “It’s not too far. And my roommates are out of town, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He makes the decision before he can even properly think about it. 

“Okay,” he says. “But we’re getting a cab.”

.

Adam is on his knees in front of Kent the moment the door closes behind them, and he yanks at the jeans buttons until they give in all at once. 

“Fuck, you got even hotter,” he whispers into the curve of Kent’s hipbone. 

Kent wants to kiss him, to see for himself if Adam still kisses the same way he used to. He tugs at Adam’s shirt, says, “C’mon, up. I’m guessing there’s a bed somewhere in this apartment, let’s find it.”

Adam goes, and when he crowds Kent against the door for a few seconds, Kent uses this moment to pull him down by the nape of his neck and kiss him. It doesn’t feel like the old times, and he’s at the same time relieved and disappointed. The truth is, they’re not stupid kids anymore, fooling around and scared to death of being caught with their hands down each other’s pants. They’d gone their separate ways at some point in time, off to kiss other people, and now that they have come together again, there’s the echo of those people in the way they touch each other.

Kent wonders if it would be the same with Jack now. Or maybe he would touch Jack and it would feel like nothing has changed at all, because the only echo in Kent’s touch is Jack.

They find the bed, eventually, and then Adam’s lips find Kent’s dick, and this, too, is different from that tentative, clumsy way they used to get each other off, still new to hooking up and keeping secrets that could ruin their lives. 

“Jesus, you got _much_ better at that,” Adam says later as Kent wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and squats on his haunches.

When he looks at his watch, he discovers that he has still half an hour to make the curfew. 

“Got a lot of practice in the Juniors,” Kent says flippantly, like what he had with Jack and what happened after didn’t fuck him up for life. “You should know, right?”

Adam laughs. “Yeah, no. My team was pretty big on the whole _no homo_ thing. Clearly, things were pretty different in Canada.”

He should be more bitter, Kent thinks, but then again, maybe that’s just him. Maybe it’s just Kent who is bitter and pissed off, and so fucking _tired_ of hiding, and too damn chickenshit to do anything about it.

“I should go,” he says, getting up to get pull his shirt back on. “The curfew…”

“Yeah, yeah, no sweat,” Adam says in return as he gets out of bed. “I get it. But it was really great to see you again, for real. So don’t be a stranger, yeah? Give me a call if you’re ever in the neighborhood.”

He scribbles the number on a piece of paper and hands it to Kent, and it’s such a déjà vu Kent needs to remind himself that he’s in New York, not in Vegas, and that he’s known Adam for _years_.

“Yeah,” he says, and maybe even means it. “Yeah, I will.”

.

He makes it back to the hotel with five minutes to spare. 

“Where the fuck have you been, Parser?” Griffin asks when Kent swipes the card to let himself into their room. “Were you out getting _laid_ , you fucker?”

Kent couldn’t begin to explain the events of this evening even if he tried, this weird mix of longing and want, and comforting familiarity, and absolute, utter fucking misery, let alone the fact that he hooked up with a _guy_ , so he just smiles and settles for, “Maybe.”

Later, with Griffin snoring softly in the other bed, Kent sends a message to Jack, and he hates himself for it, but he also needs Jack to _know_ , even if Kent is positive there will be no response. 

The message reads: _I loved you first, you know? I loved you, and I love you, and I’m sorry. I’m not gonna call again_.

It’s the first time he’s ever said the words to Jack. 

When he wakes up in the morning, there are no new messages.

.

They play their hearts out in New York and New Jersey, and by the time they head back to Vegas for their last game of the regular season, they already know they’re going to the playoffs for the first time in the history of the franchise.

Kent reads the congratulatory text from Bob out loud at team breakfast. 

It’s moments like these that Kent plays for. He loves the sport, and there’s just one thing, apart from his family, that he’s loved more than hockey in his entire life; he couldn’t imagine a life for himself where he _wasn’t_ playing hockey, but these past few months have been the hard on him in a way he could’ve never imagined, stretched him too thin, leaving too little of him to fill the spaces between his ribs.

He’s trying to be better, though. To get better. If there’s one thing that can be said about Kent Parson, it’s that he’s always trying.

So he grits his teeth, plays the best hockey of his life, and doesn’t think about Jack.

They finish the season with a game against the Sharks, and by the end of the third period they’re up two, but Kent already knows he’s not getting the Art Ross. It’s a bittersweet victory in the end, and when the team goes out to celebrate, Kent takes his time in the shower, waiting for the tightness in his throat to disappear before he joins them outside. 

Dubois is waiting for him when Kent gets out of the shower and walks into the locker room.

“Hey,” he puts his hand on Kent’s shoulder and squeezes, “you did good. You did right by the team, and this is your first season, okay? So don’t beat yourself up over it. You were just one point short. That’s fucking _amazing_ for a rookie.”

Kent nods and gives Dubois a wide smile, making sure that it doesn’t slip. 

“It’s not a big deal,” he says, shrugging nonchalantly, and Dubois lets his hand fall to his side. “I knew I probably wasn’t gonna get it anyway. Never happened before, right? Not even for Gretzky.”

He laughs, because it feels like he’s going to suffocate otherwise.

The thing is, he has no idea why he’s so upset over this. Maybe it’s just that he’s fallen short of his own expectations for the first time in a very long time. Maybe it’s that he can’t help but think that _Jack_ could’ve done it, but things turned out the way they did, and now they will never know.

.

They go out, all of them, after the game—the place they go to is a sports dive bar, and it’s packed because there’s a football game on. 

Kent knows the bartender recognizes him as soon as he walks up to the counter to order a glass of virgin mojito, but that doesn’t happen often in Vegas. 

“Congrats on making the playoffs,” she says as she crushes the ice and tops the glass up with sparkling water. “Sorry about the Arty.”

Kent smiles and shrugs, his hands stuffed in the front pockets of his jeans. “There’s always the next year, right? It’s always good to have a goal. Helps you stay motivated.”

“Sure thing,” the girl says and sweeps the wrinkled twenty off the counter. “Anyway, good luck with the playoffs, break a leg and all that.”

By the time Kent comes back to the table, Laakkonen is methodically destroying Sasha at foosball. There’s an unoccupied pool table in the other corner, left of the bar.

Kent takes a long drink of his mojito and looks over his teammates. “Anyone?” he asks, inclining his head in the direction of the table. “Ready to get your asses kicked?”

Orlovsky snorts. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Please, I’m gonna _smoke_ your sorry ass. You should’ve seen me and Zimms—” he stops mid-sentence, realizing what he was about to say, and Kent can see the way everyone is looking at him, because Kent never, _ever_ talks about Jack. 

It’s one of those things that everyone notices but no one comments on, and Kent is fine with that, as long as they’re not asking any questions, because the last thing Kent wants to do is to revisit the good years, back when he thought they were both untouchable, when he thought nothing would change between them as long as they lived, and they would play against each other at first, but then maybe they would get to play together again, and it would be just like back in Rimouski. 

They used to know each other by touch. Now, Kent just feels touch-starved all the time, like Jack took something from him that Kent can never get back. 

The other thing is—he’s not a naïve kid anymore. He knows better now. It hurts, but then again, maybe it always hurts to know. Maybe that’s how you don’t forget those things you learned the hard way.

“Twenty bucks say I’m gonna eat your corpse for breakfast. Bring it on, cowboy,” Orlovsky says, and Kent laughs, pretends to chew on a straw and does a _horrible_ impression of a Southern accent. 

“Y’all won’t even know what hit ya,” he says as he walks over to the pool and picks up a cue, followed by fits of laughter. 

Turns out, Orlovsky is not half-bad at pool, but Kent is _better_ , and once they’re done, Kent puts away the cue and reaches his hand out, palm up. 

“Pay up, Jax,” he says, laughing when Orlovsky slams a crumpled twenty into Kent’s palm. “Don’t be a sore fucking loser.”

It’s not until he’s in his car on the way back to his apartment that it hits him, squarely in the chest—he’s going to the Stanley Cup playoffs. He’s come such a long way, and has sacrificed so much, and has left so much behind, but now he’s going to the playoffs with his team, and they’re going to leave all their blood and sweat and tears on the ice to make it as far as they can.

The only thing is, when he’d imagined that moment before, Jack was always there, ready to face Kent on the ice, to help him change the face of the game forever, just like Kent would help him to take the league by storm in return. They were supposed to challenge each other, make each other better even while being on opposing teams, invincible and untouchable, and golden. 

Now Kent is in Vegas, and Jack is in Nova Scotia, and he’s not playing hockey. 

It’s almost funny, the way life happens sometimes. 

Kent is not laughing.

.

They don’t make it to the second round. They play seven grueling games against the Kings and lose after two OT periods in game seven. 

Laakkonen has been playing with an injury since game five, and Kent’s shoulder has started bothering him again, so he goes through the nightly routine of icing and stretching, but the persistent, dull pain flares up every time he lines up to take a shot, and in the end, there’s no amount of gritting teeth and skating through the pain that can help them stay in the playoffs.

Once it’s done—once _the Aces_ are done—Kent shakes hands mechanically with the Kings players and skates straight towards the tunnel entrance, his head down. Cal and Keller are crying, and Kent desperately tries to keep it together, his hands balled into fists at his sides, one of them gripping his stick so hard Kent thinks it might break, his knuckles white. 

He doesn’t cry in the shower, even though the sharp ache in his chest doesn’t stop even when Kent tries to slow down his breathing, and it feels like there’s an invisible force trying to crush his ribs.

He doesn’t cry as he makes it through the presser, speaking about dedication and hard work, and disappointment, and how they can now regroup and try to build from the ground up. How they’re a stronger team than they were last year, how they got this far for the first time in the history of the franchise. How proud he is of being part of this team. 

It feels almost like déjà vu, but this time, it’s not a lie. 

He doesn’t cry when Bob calls him some time later, just as he’s leaving the arena.

“You did good, son,” Bob says, and Kent bites into his lower lip, his eyes stinging. “And the Aces are lucky to have you, but sometimes that’s just how it goes. You fought hard, and you lost. But you’re gonna get there one day, so just hang in there. And if you need a place to regroup, I hope you know that the invitation still stands.”

Kent thinks about it—about going back to Montreal, back to the Zimmermanns’ house. He doesn’t think Jack would be there, because it’s clear he doesn’t want to see Kent, and Kent knows the Zimmermanns wouldn’t violate the trust Jack has in them like that. No, Jack would probably be in their summer house in Nova Scotia; Kent has never been there—they had plans, for after the draft, for the rest of that last summer of their childhood, the last time they would’ve been inseparable. 

But he doesn’t know if he could go back now. If he could look at these spaces that were once filled with Jack’s presence and notice only _lack_.

“Thank you,” he says to Bob, then exhales slowly. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He finally breaks down the moment he sees his mother in the Skype window, tired and half-asleep, and she says, “I’m so sorry, baby. Please, come home.”

“I couldn’t do it, mom,” he says between dry, heaving sobs. 

Kent _hates_ crying. It makes him feel open and vulnerable, and so fucking _weak_ , like he’s giving some part of himself away to people who could use it as ammunition. Not his mother—never his mother, and never Sam; but there’s a reason Kent keeps so much of what he feels inside, safe behind the mask of cool indifference.

“I wanted to do it so much, to prove everyone that I was good enough, and I couldn’t.” He wipes his wet cheeks with the back of his hand, his ragged breath almost deafening in his ears.

“You did so good, baby,” his mom says in return. “I’m so proud of you. You wanted this for so long, to go to the playoffs, and you took your team there in your first year. Just imagine what you’re gonna do next season. You did _so much_. You did _enough_.”

His mom looks like she’s about to cry, too, and Kent feels like an asshole. 

“It’s okay, mom, really,” he says quickly, almost embarrassed by his earlier breakdown all of a sudden. He feels like he’s all of ten years old again, hating the way his face looks when he cries in public. He’s always been an ugly crier. “It’s okay, I’m gonna be fine. I’m gonna be home soon.”

.

Kent has a routine for the off-season. He has a training regime, and he goes to see a physiotherapist twice a week for his inflamed shoulder, and his agent has booked him a few interviews and photo shoots for various sports publications, and when he’s not training or giving interviews, or playing with Purrson, he’s looking at house listings in Westland Park.

He calls the realtor on the second Monday in May, after he finds a house that’s within his price range and that he’s pretty sure his mother would love. 

“Yes, the offer is still available,” the woman he talks to informs him. “We could arrange a viewing either tomorrow or later today, whichever would be more convenient for you.”

Kent laughs. “Sorry,” he says almost immediately, “it’s just that I’m in _Nevada_. But the house is not for me, it’s for my mom, so maybe she could come instead? I’ll check with her and get back to you in a bit?”

When he calls his mom, she’s completely silent for a long, long while. 

“Kent, _baby_ , you know you don’t have to do this,” she says eventually, and her voice sounds strangled, like she’s trying not to cry. “It’s your money, you worked hard for it, and—”

“And I want to buy you a house,” Kent says, just a little exasperated. “Mom, really, it’s _the least_ I can do, after everything you’ve done for me. And I _want_ to do it. I _want_ you to have it. Please, just go meet the realtor? I think you might like it.”

He buys the house three days later, then looks at his bank account statement and regrets _nothing_.

.

He flies back to New York two days after the fucking Hawks win the Cup. 

When he hails a cab at the airport, his first instinct is to give the driver the address of their old apartment in Groesbeckville before he remembers they don’t live there anymore. 

It feels strange, getting out of the cab in front of an unfamiliar house that’s supposed to be his home now. Well, his second home, the one he will always come back to but not really _his_ , not anymore. 

It’s not very big, but there’s a large patio in the back and a garden, and Sam could have that dog she always wanted, and his mom could have neat rows of ceramic pots to grow herbs in—basil and rosemary, and mint, and thyme. They could have a life here—a good life—while Kent is on the other side of the continent, missing them.

They deserve to have that.

Sam has a friend over, a girl Kent only vaguely recognizes, but who must recognize _him_ , because she blushes and giggles when she sees him come in to say hello.

“What’s up, brat?” Kent says as he kisses the top of Sam’s head. 

“Well, for one, I don’t have to share a room with you anymore, so I’m _great_.” She tries to elbow him in the stomach but misses by a fraction of an inch when Kent moves back. “You fucking _snore_.”

“Screw you, I don’t snore.” Kent fights the urge to stick his tongue out.

“Hey, you remember Nisha, right?” Sam says then, and the girl waves. 

She must be one of Sam’s friends from school. Kent thinks they met once or twice, but she was probably just a kid back then. 

“Sure I do. Hey,” he says, running a hand through his hair that got flattened under his snapback on the plane, except for that one infuriating cowlick that just won’t fucking quit. Sometimes Kent thinks he should just get a buzz cut and be done with it. “Sam, where’s mom?”

Sam gets up from the couch and stretches. “In the kitchen,” she says. “C’mon, I’m gonna show you.”

They go together, leaving Nisha in the living room with a pitcher of lemonade and video games to keep her occupied.

“She has a crush on you,” Sam whispers once they’re out of hearing range, amused and mock-disgusted. “It’s _gross_.”

“You’re gross,” Kent says back, knocking into her as they walk towards the kitchen, and for a moment it’s like nothing has changed at all.

.

A few of Kent’s old buddies from school are in town for the summer, and they want to meet up. They don’t really keep in touch apart from looking at each other’s lives through the Facebook feed, but he still says yes, because he’s bored as fuck by the second week at home, and there are only so many hours you can work out before you overexert yourself or drop dead from exhaustion.

He needs to fly back to Vegas in a few days for the NHL awards, but then it’s back to New York just in time for the draft. He could, technically, go to LA or stay in Vegas, but he’s not sure he can look at the draft lottery ever again without feeling the aftertaste of bile at the back of his throat, so he wants to spend the day at home, not alone and sleep-deprived, and scared to death that his best friend would just not wake up while Kent wasn’t looking.

They meet at a local dive bar where the bartender knows Kent and is willing to overlook Kent’s age in favor of celebrating his first playoff run.

“On the house, dude,” he says as he hands him a bottle of Heineken. 

Jeff is there, and so are Logan and Chris, and it becomes painfully apparent within the first half an hour that they have _nothing_ left in common. It makes him sound like an asshole, but that’s the truth.

The thing is—none of them ever played hockey beyond the occasional shinny when they would fuck around on the ice more than actually play, and none of them have any idea what it takes to go pro, to make it to the big leagues and stay there. 

“So you must be getting, like, _mad_ pussy over there, right?” Chris asks while Kent plays with his empty beer bottle, eager to get out of there. “I mean, chicks dig that shit, and you’re loaded now, so…”

Kent feels the hysterical laughter bubble up his chest and throat. He wonders what they would say if they knew. He wonders if they would still have the same respect for him, for getting as far as he has. If the fact that Kent Parson likes to take it up the ass would make a difference. 

“Don’t really have time for that,” he settles for instead. 

They all laugh.

“Come on, Parser, that’s bullshit and you know it,” Logan says. He wanted to go to college, play NCAA football, but his grades weren’t enough to get him in. “There are the—what the fuck are they called, puck bunnies? Yeah, puck bunnies. I mean, you really wanna tell me you haven’t…”

Kent shrugs. “Dunno what to tell you, man. It’s been about the game for me, this season.”

He looks at the watch and contemplates getting himself another beer, but he knows he’s pushing it already. All it takes is one asshole with a phone camera and internet connection, and he wants to play nice with management, so he needs to behave. No need to add to the narrative of fucked up NHL manchildren—the league has enough of those as it is.

Instead, he takes another glance at the watch and says, “Shit, I gotta go. I’ll see you around, yeah?”

He leaves the bar after settling the tab and leaving a big tip in the jar at the counter—the least he could do for the technically illegal beer. 

He doesn’t even know what he expected, coming here. Maybe proof that some things can stay the same. That you can come back after years, and nothing will have changed.

What he’s just got is the opposite of that.

.

At the tail end of June, they trade Griffin and a few other guys for the second overall pick, and they draft Nathan Olsen in the first round. 

It’s a good trade, Kent has to admit, even though he’s gonna miss Griffin, and the phone call Kent makes after he learns the news is full of stunned silence on Griffin’s end. He’s going to Seattle. Nate Olsen is coming to Vegas, and it’s not a coincidence he’s been drafted second overall.

Two days before all of that happens, Bob Zimmermann presents Kent with the Calder.

It’s an emotional moment for both of them, and Kent can’t help but wonder if maybe Bob thought, once upon a time, that it would be _Jack_ on that stage instead of Kent. If maybe, despite everything, he’s still just a little disappointed that it isn’t.

On the stage, Bob hugs him and claps him on the back, and whispers, “I’m proud of you.”

Kent blinks back the tears, his throat tight.

Later, when he checks his phone, there’s a message from Jack. It reads: _Congratulations_.

Kent flags down the nearest waiter and downs an entire glass of champagne in one go, hidden in a corner, away from the rest of the crowd. 

His hands are shaking. 

He wants to call Jack, wants to ask him, _why now_ , _why this_ , _why do you think you can just do this to me_ , _why did you never say anything_ , _why did you leave me_. _Why would you not talk to me_. He wants to scream until he’s hoarse and exhausted, and there’s nothing of this year left inside of him.

How fucking fitting, he thinks. Congratulations, here’s your other accomplishment for the year: you survived. What a fucking joke.

He’s been a lot of things this year: lonely, miserable, deeply, deeply fucked-up. Now he’s _angry_.

_You can’t fucking do this to people_ , he writes, then deletes the text before he can convince himself to send it. He can’t go back to his table like that; he must look like a mess, or at least he feels like that. 

When he ducks into the men’s washroom, it’s empty, thank fucking god, and Kent splashes his face with cold water, then takes a look at himself in the mirror. 

He looks a bit like he’s just seen a ghost. Close enough.

He’s almost on his way out when he bumps into Bob at the door.

“You all right, son?” Bob asks, looking down at Kent with scrutiny. 

Kent laughs and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. Just…got a bit, you know. I’m gonna go get some air, I think.” He pauses, then adds, “And tell Jack…tell him thank you, okay?”

He slips outside, unnoticed, and leans against the railing which goes down the stairs that lead to the alley entrance, looking out to the bright lights of Vegas. Now, after a few weeks spent back in New York, he finds that it feels a little bit like home, too.

.

He spends most of July at home. 

They go to dinner on Kent’s birthday, the three of them, to a fancy place downtown that serves good steak, and then they make a detour to get doughnuts at Cider Belly, because Kent might be on a pretty strict diet, but it’s the off-season and he can have a goddamn cheat day on his own birthday.

Their mom can’t get time off work, but Kent takes Sam to New York for a few days the following week, and he gets dragged to see some sad musical on Broadway, because his sister is a fucking _nerd_. They get photographed as they leave the venue, and Kent poses for a few pictures, signs a few autographs, because this is New York, and New York is pretty serious about its hockey. The photos end up on Twitter, predictably, and Kent has to endure a full week of chirping from the guys.

He works out and plays with Purrson, and keeps in touch with some of the guys on the team. He thinks about calling Carver a few times, or maybe Adam, but he never goes through with it. He thinks about calling Jack. 

It’s a strange summer, all things considered, and he feels stuck in a limbo in a way he hadn’t last year, when he was waiting to pack up his life and move across the country. When he was still waiting for Jack to pick up his phone. Back then, it felt like someone landed a dirty hit on him and left him concussed, bleeding out on the ice, confused and disorientated, and panicked. 

Now, though—now he just feels restless and ready to start the new season. To prove to everyone that he has what it takes to lift thirty-four pounds of silver over his head, but the days are long and thick like molasses, and it feels like September will never come, like Kent will always be stuck at this one point in time, waiting.

.

In early August, Kent gets a phone call from one of the assistant GMs, and he has a moment of panic where he thinks they’re going to tell Kent that he just got traded, that he’s going to Seattle with Griffin and the other three guys.

He’s swimming in their little backyard pool when the phone rings, and he breaks water as soon as the sound reaches his ears, then hauls himself out of the pool and shakes his hair out as he grabs for his towel with one hand and for his phone with the other. 

“Kent, I’m glad I caught you,” Anthea says, and her tone is polite, professional as always, and Kent can’t read her at all. “We’ve been discussing certain arrangements among the management for quite some time, and after we reached out to the rest of the team to ask for their opinion, we have finally come to a consensus. But before we make anything official, I need to ask you, how would you like to lead the Aces as their captain, starting next season?”

For a long, long while, he has no idea what to say, too stunned to comprehend it, too surprised to react. 

He thinks about saying no. He thinks about telling them the truth: he’s too young, too inexperienced, he’s never worn the C, just the A. He’s not _Jack_.

There are a lot of things he could say, a lot of arguments he could use to convince them that it’s a bad idea, that Kent isn’t ready, that it’s too soon. That there are people who are better suited to that task. 

He thinks back to his first days in Vegas, how fucking lonely and lost he felt, how alienated from everyone and everything that he knew. How he thought it would always be like this. 

But if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s this: they only way is forward. There is no going back.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want, come say hi on [tumblr](http://idrilka.tumblr.com/) :)


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